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STRAY MEDITATIONS: 




VOICES OF THE HEAET, 



IN JOY AND IN SORRO W. 



BY JOS. P. THOMPSON, 

PASTOR OF THE BROADWAY TABERNACLE CHURCH. 



NEW YORK: 
PUBLISHED BY A. S. BARNES & COMPANY, 

KO. 51 JOHN-STREET. 

1852. 



^ 



I 9^ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by 

A.S. Barnes & Co., 
in the District Court for the Southern District of New York. 




nnHE title of this little book sufficiently indi- 
cates its character. It is not a volume of 
elaborate and consecutive essays, with any pre- 
tense to logical or rhetorical completeness, but 
a book of fragments, embodying thoughts that 
coursed freely through the mind in its unfetter- 
ed moments — the spontaneous and unrestrained 
utterances of the Heart amid the ordinary scenes 
and changes 'of life.- Though it embodies the 



FIEST WORDS, 



utterances of but a single heart, and these sug- 
gested by its own experiences, its interest is in 
no sense personal, its topics are in no way pe- 
culiar. The HEAET thinks aloud, and records 
its thoughts for its own pleasure and profit, not 
framing their expression for others, yet not un- 
willing to share with others whatever of good 
there may chance to be in them. 

Many were the years in which this heart 
hardly had a care or knew the name of grief: 
years of childhood bright and sunny, with every 
want supplied, with every circle of relationship 
complete, and every tie of affection unbroken : 
years of youth passed amid the choicest friend- 
ships and untrammeled in the pursuit of knowl- 
edge : } r ears of manhood spent in scenes of use- 
ful labor, in the service of Religion, in the home 
of Love, where the vine bloomed perennial and 



FIRST WORDS 



the olive plants flourished in their green and 
tender beauty, and where there shone ever a se- 
rene light, fed from the fountain of heavenly 
Wisdom and Grace, cheering the hours of labor 
and of weariness, illumining the way of doubt 
and of perplexity, hallowing the night of trouble, 
and gladdening with a pure and holy radiance 
the lengthened day of prosperity. 

But changes came ; sickness, and death, and 
sorrow ; such changes as come to all ; and the 
once free and joyous Heart sounded the utmost 
depths of grief. "The heart knoweth its own 
bitterness, and a stranger intermeddleth not with 
its joys." The reader is not invited to look into 
its depths. No exposure is made to his curiosity ; 
no appeal is made to his sympathy. But in its 
varying experiences the heart found a voice 
through the correlative truths of the Gospel, and 



FIRST WO RDS, 



to these mainly it has here given utterance, that 
they may speak also to other hearts under like 
experiences. 

If here and there rhymed words give expres- 
sion to the passing sentiment, it is not because 
this Heart has ever been inspired with a poetic 
flame, or has essayed the "art divine," but be- 
cause in some meditative hour, simple, harmoni- 
ous numbers shaped themselves, unbidden, to the 
present course of thought ; and these are retained 
because the heart cherishes its first and readiest 
impressions, and abhors the labor limce and the 
critic's role. 

Some of these meditations have already found 
utterance through the columns of a weekly relig- 
ious journal, and from that Lave been reprinted 
in several similar journals in various parts of the 
country. It has been thought best at length, to 



FIRST WOKDS 



collect them into a volume. Whether there was 
all for this will not matter to the reader, if 
only his heart shall come into gentle sympathy 
with the HEART that beats through these pages. 



tTnntrnts. 



Pa^e 

First Words 3 

Thoughts at Thirty 13 

My Rural Home 15 

Ennui 22 

The Sacred Privacy of Home 24 

A Reminiscence of Childhood 27 

My Sister's Grave 32 

The Vision of Death 34 

The Newly Born 40 

The Bird and the Child 44 

The Child Dead 49 

" Suffer Little Children n 53 



10 CONTENTS. 



Page 

Watching for Death 59 

The First Breach 62 

Moth-Eaten 64 

The Deserted House 66 

Thinking Too Much 68 

Troubled Thoughts 73 

Divine Consolations 80 

Heart Searching 86 

The Peace of God 90 

A Day with Christ 97 

A Porcelain Christ and the Heart Christ 103 

Christ Indwelling 107 

A Good Foundation 115 

Riveted to Christ 118 

Not Solitary 124 

The Promised Coming 129 

Has Christ Come? 133 

The Sympathy of Christ 134 

Christ's Sympathy 143 

Death no Terror 148 

The Gain of Losses 155 

My Future Mansion 1 (3 1 

The Spirit World 1 66 

The Spirituality of Heaven 176 



CONTENTS. 11 



Page 

The Resurrection 183 

The Inalienable Possession 195 

I. — Christ's Love Spontaneous 201 

II. — Christ's Love Eternal 203 

III. — Christ's Love Omnipotent 204 

IV. — Christ's Love Immutable 207 

V. — Christ's Love Peculiar 208 

VI. — Christ's Love Prescient 210 

VII. — Christ's Love Victorious 212 

VIII. — Christ's Love Complete 213 

IX. — Christ's Love All-Sustaining 216 

X — Paul and Chrtsostom 219 

XI. — Victory over Death 223 

XII. — Closing Lessons 225 



STRAY MEDITATIONS, 



$ljimgj)ts nt €$x% 

I HAVE nothing to gain or to lose by the con- 
fession — I am standing on this riclge of human 
life, and before this is in type shall have crossed 
it. " At thirty man suspects himself a fool;" and 
therefore he need not be troubled if others think 
him so. It used to seem a long, long way up to 
this summit, but the last few miles of the journey 
have been shorter and shorter, and now in looking 
back it is incredible that almost the average meas- 
ure of a generation has been passed. There have 
been some sorrows on the way ; — one of the heart's 
dearest treasures, torn suddenly from me, was laid 
down not far back in that green and flowery 

mound by the river-side ; I seem to clasp it still. 

2 



14 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

There have been some dangers, too ; — not the least 
that lone grapple with the Pestilence at dead of 
night, like being dragged into a dark and chilly 
cavern, or to the brink of a frightful precipice. 
Yet has it been a pleasant way, a very pleasant 
way ; life hitherto one prolonged blessing. At 
times it seems almost a waste, strewn with the 
fragments of broken promises and resolutions, 
with here and there a spot of verdure, still moist 
with the dew of tears, but where the sun is shin- 
ing; and then, as in the "dissolving views" of 
the child's chemistry, there rises over this waste a 
mist like the mist of morning, fringed with purple 
and gold, which as it rolls away reveals as through 
a curtain of finest gauze, the clear blue depths of 
ether, and banks of flowers, and waving grass, 
and shady groves, and streamlets dancing in the 
sunbeams ; and across this fairy vista hath been 
the path hitherward. . . . There is no long level 
on this summit ; no gentle slope ; no quiet resting- 
place. A declivity rather as it seems, with inter- 
vals of rising ground — yet ever tending down- 
wards, sometimes precipitous, and ending in a 
dark, deep chasm. Care must be had, for there 
are sudden breaks in the road, and dangerous 



MY RURAL HOME. 15 

passes. But see, there is a silver thread running 
far, far down the hill through every winding even 
to the dark valley, and there too the eye can fol- 
low it on and on, like an arrowy line of light, till 
in the distance it expands in bright effulgence, 
and as the shadows roll away the dim outline of 
the delectable mountains and the distant shimmer- 
ing of the celestial city come into view. Farewell 
Youth I Hail Immortality ! Soul, gird thyself 
and on. At thirty the Master received His baptism 
and began His work. 



\\ Ettritl lnitn. 



(From a Published Letter.) 



ONCE more at my rural home — for is not that 
home where one's dearest earthly treasures 
are ? It is perhaps significant of the social condi- 
tion of the French that their language has no word 



16 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

corresponding to our good, hearty, Saxon " home ;" 
and how can a nation ever become politically es- 
tablished until a sanctity is thrown around domes- 
tic life, and men's hearts are rooted in their homes ? 
Yet after all that chez nous of the Frenchman, if 
it does not suggest a locality, a fixed abode, does 
it not convey the essential idea of home — a state, 
a feeling, rather than a place? " With us-" and 
what is home without the US? The house maybe 
a palace ; but what are spacious halls, and luxuri- 
ous parlors clothed with velvet and crimson, and 
adorned with works of art, and chambers hung 
with richest tapestry and furnished with couches 
that invite repose, and tables spread with the deli- 
cacies of every clime, — what are all these to one 
who is alone — when the voice of love and the 
prattle of innocence are not heard, and no glad 
smile of welcome greets him after the cares and 
labors of the day ? I submit, therefore, that I am 
at home, and I care not to invite friends to a home 
more delightful than they would find here, " with 
us." "Will it not be the realization of the Chris- 
tian's home to be with Christ? So prayed, so 
promised the Master ; " that ivhere I am there ye 
may be also ;" " Father, I will that they also whom 



If Y RURAL HO M E. 17 

thou hast given me be with me ivhere I am J 1 
Blessed Home ! " Forever with the Lord !" 

The second journey hither differed somewhat 
from the first. The first time a joyous and excited 
company hurried on board the starting boat, as if 
but a plank divided them from pleasures long an- 
ticipated which might yet be lost ; the second, a 
solitary invalid, pallid and trembling, came early 
to the boat and leaning on his staff, slowly wended 
his way to the saloon and laid down to rest, alike 
indifferent to the hour of starting and to the bust- 
ling crowd. Such are life's changes: now we 
hurry and drive, are in the whirl of business or 
pleasure, not a moment must be lost, not a plan 
must be suspended, not an enjoyment forgone ; 
next we drag heavily onward, like an engine whose 
motion is reversed, and its steam let off, while its 
momentum is not yet spent — the wheels rolling 
backward, the body feebly struggling forward ; 
and soon worn out, shattered, broken clown, we 
shall be taken off the track and carried, motion- 
less, we know not whither. But the Great Archi- 
tect can repair the miserable wreck — can even 
build it up anew and give it an immortal vigor. 

Well here I am in Greenland. Prav don't be 



18 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

startled ; I am not among Esquimaux, polar bears, 
and icebergs, (though, judging from the tempera- 
ture of these August nights, I think the latter 
cannot be far distant,) but among open-hearted, 
generous, thrifty Yankees, in one of the most ver- 
dant spots of this granite region, where nature, 
though not luxuriant, is ever lovely, and disposes 
her beauties often with more effect than in sunnier 
climes. By the way, preaching here awhile ago, I 
came in my sermon to a passage designed to show 
the adaptation of God's word to all classes and con- 
ditions of men, and went on in the enumeration 
of the rich and the poor, the noble and the igno- 
ble, the learned and the ignorant, the inhabitants 
of Caffraria and of — Greenland ! was the word — 
and I had well nigh shocked my hearers by class- 
ing them even by suggestion with one extreme of 
humanity, when I fortunately made my escape 
into a vague generalization of " the frozen regions 
of the north." Understand then that I am at 
that Greenland which is located in the south-east- 
ern corner of Nevr Hampshire, between Exeter 
and Portsmouth, and about five miles inland from 
the Atlantic coast, a quiet farming town, which at 
this season well deserves its name, albeit the 



MY RURAL HOME. 19 

drought lias parched the fields which a month ago 
were clothed with so rich a verdure. Picture to 
yourself a large double-house, newly painted, of a 
bright buff, with pretty green blinds, standing on 
a gentle knoll at the junction of the main road 
and a wooded lane, with a neat front yard filled 
with rose-bushes and snow-berries, and young 
spruce and locust trees, a range of out-buildings 
in perfect repair stretching along the lane in the 
rear, the side entrance with its Venetian door 
shaded by a tall and graceful elm, opposite to 
which is the carriage-house, giving a picturesque 
grouping to the buildings as seen from the south- 
ern approach on the main road ; and having made 
this hasty survey of the premises, come and take 
your stand with me in this door-w r ay facing the 
west, or look from my chamber window on the 
broad meadow that sweeps before us, terminating 
in yonder slope yellow w r ith ripening grain, beyond 
which stands a farm-house, surrounded with trees 
that shut out the horizon, save where here and 
there a break in the foliage reveals the clear blue 
sky, relieved by a distant hill : to the right is the 
garden, with its beds of flowers, fruits, and veget- 
ables, so neatly arranged, its tasteful summer- 



20 STRAY MEDITATION'S. 

house, and ornamented bee-house; and beyond 
the wide fields of grain, around which the road 
meanders like a gentle stream, losing itself among 
the trees, through which we catch now and then a 
glimpse of an approaching vehicle : to the left the 
road is sooner lost among the woods that skirt the 
base of Stratham hill, from which may be seen of 
a clear day the town of Portsmouth, its spires and 
tall factory chimney, the navy yard, the harbor, 
the ocean, the Isle of Shoals, and Mount Agamen- 
ticus in Maine. Near by is a quiet grove, where 
we may find at noontide a cooling shade. If now 
you would add to all this a pleasing water pros- 
pect, we will get up the horse and take a half- 
hour's drive down that shady lane and through 
the pine grove to the bay-side, where the broad 
arm of the Piscataqua stretches itself around a 
cluster of well-tilled farms ; or heading due east, 
an hour's ride will bring us to the beach, where 
we may take a cooling in the surf, and then enjoy 
awhile the comfort and society of the well-fur- 
nished hotel. Perhaps, too, we shall be able there 
to learn the news ! 

When one whose life and habits and tastes are 
all formed for the city would seek recreation and 



IY RURAL HOME. 21 

health by a change of scene, let him choose some 
quiet retreat like this, rather than the mimicry of 
city life at a fashionable watering place. How 
grateful to body and soul thus to repose amid the 
loveliness of nature, under the leafy grove, or be- 
side the purling brook, with the companionship of 
a friend or book, or silently communing with one- 
self and God. I know that no less an authority 
than Dr. Johnson has said that " the knowledge 
of external nature, and the sciences which that 
knowledge requires, are not the great or the fre- 
quent business of the human mind ;" and that 
therefore " we ought not to turn off attention from 
life to nature, as if we were placed here to watch 
the growth of plants or the motions of the stars." 
Yet the great lexicographer himself might have 
profited by what he here affects to despise. Had 
he made the study of external nature his more 
frequent occupation, it would have given a more 
healthful and spiritual tone to his philosophy — a 
higher character and grace to his life. To enjoy 
nature it is not necessary to be familiar with the 
nomenclature of science, any more than it is ne- 
cessary to learn Johnson's dictionary by heart be- 
fore one can enjoy a page of Milton. Doubtless 



22 STRAY MEDITATION'S. 

the botanist, the mineralogist, the geologist, the 
ornithologist, and naturalists of every name have 
pleasures peculiar to their respective sciences — 
there is pleasure in classification, generalization, 
and the study of properties and habits ; but one 
can enjoy the color or fragrance of a flower or 
the singing of a bird even if he cannot Latinize 
the object, just as a Cape Cod fisherman pulls up 
a good fat cod thinking it is only a "cod" that 
will fetch so much in the market, with as much 
gusto as if he knew that a Morrhua Americana 
was swinging on his hook. And what so fitted 
to dispose the mind to a grateful adoration of the 
Creator as the studious contemplation of his 
works ? 



€nnni. 

ii "\7~OU must do nothing for awhile," said the 

JL Doctor. The prescription was hard enough 

where there was everything to do ; it is harder 



ENNUI. 23 



where there is nothing. Tired of reading, tired 
of talking, tired of sleeping, tired of walking, 
tired of thinking, tired of writing, what shall a 
poor mortal do ? I have no doubt that a steamer 
has arrived ; that there has been a great battle in 
Hungary, that Liberty still maintains a foothold 
at Eome, and that France is heaving with the 
ground-swell of revolution;* but I am two 
miles from the Post-office, four from the rail- 
road depot, eight from the telegraph station, and so 
on in a geometrical ratio of removal from all 
means of intelligence. Oh, to hear a newsboy 
crying an " Extreef" I could even put up with an 
"Express, third edishin" Come, get up the horse 
and we'll go down to the village, though probably 
the Post-office will be closed, as it is nine-tenths 
of the time, or the papers will be a week old, and 
the extras from Boston will give us news of an 
advance in cotton from -J- to }, or of a fall in con- 
sols, when we want to hear of the advance of free- 
dom and the fall of tyranny. 

« Written in 1849. 



24 STEAY MEDITATIONS. 



€1;e iatrji $rinnni nf lining 

ONE of the most attractive features of a good 
home is its privacy. There conversation is 
conducted with the freedom of mutual confidence 
and affection; there the meal is divested of all 
formality and constraint, and made truly social ; 
there dress is unstudied as to its fashion or its ma- 
terial ; there relaxation is indulged without any 
consciousness of the conventionalities of society 
or the restraints of a cynical philosophy or of an 
austere faith ; there love is natural and free in its 
every expression and its every act ; there even 
worship is more simple and more heartfelt, because 
unbiassed by a regard for form or observation ; and 
all this because there is throughout the family a 
community of interest such as cannot exist among a 
company of individuals not bound together by 
family ties. The presence of a stranger imposes 
more or less of restraint, and even the most fa- 



SACRED PRIVACY OF HOME. 25 

miliar friend is at times a check upon the open- 
ness and hilarity of the family circle. It is the 
beauty of the family that while it gratifies the so- 
cial instincts of our nature, it preserves to us that 
privacy which we crave in proportion to our social 
cultivation ; for the most loving heart would share 
its intimacies with but few, and those if possible 
evermore the same. The tenants of hotels and 
boarding-houses may live peaceably and comforta- 
bly together, and may even contract a sort of in- 
timacy and affection for each other ; but they can- 
not welcome every new comer to their confidence, 
nor can they grasp each other with the warmth 
and vigor of a natural and a permanent love. 
They have not the free range of the house, but 
must retreat to their several chambers for the con- 
fidential exchanges of the heart ; at the common 
table, and in the common parlor, dress, manners, 
and conversation are ail under inspection ; and the 
instinctive withdrawing of families to their own 
apartments for the closer communion of heart 
with heart, indicates that compound want of our 
nature, which may perhaps be expressed by the 
term social privacy. For the sake of country air 
or sea breezes, one can tolerate for a season the 



26 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

mixed company of a boarding-house away from 
home ; he may find advantages in the temporary 
commingling of families under one roof; he may 
form agreeable acquaintances and friendships that 
shall prove permanent ; he may learn some valu- 
able lessons of human nature and human life ; but 
he will often yearn for the sacred privacy of home 
— a home conscious of no restraint but that of na- 
tive delicacy and refined Christian feeling. Hon- 
ored and cherished be the privacy of home ; there 
let the man become a boy again, and the dignified 
statesman and the grave divine without scandal 
participate in the sports of childhood, down upon 
all-fours at a game of marbles, or off coat for a 
game of ball ; there let the notes of love and glee 
ring out as nature prompts them, without affecta- 
tion and without prudishness. 

It is the calamity of the poor, in great cities, 
that they cannot enjoy the seclusion of a home, 
but must occupy a mere place in a crowded tene- 
ment, and perhaps in a crowded apartment. The 
same evil in kind, though from other causes, is 
experienced by the earlier emigrants to a new 
country, who have often but a single apartment 
for all purposes and for all belonging to the com- 



REMINISCENCE OF CHILDHOOD. 27 

pany. This promiscuous herding of men, women, 
and children is contrary to nature, and is unfavor- 
able to social and moral cultivation. The family 
institution, with its combined advantages of seclu- 
sion and society, is the institution which Grod has 
appointed for the best development of man. The 
more I study this economy the more I admire the 
wisdom and benevolence of its Author. "He 
setteth the solitary" — not in phalanxes — but "in 
families" 



1 llnninisrrarB nf CjjilMjnn^ 

(From a published letter.) 

Ill AYE heard of persons returning from Europe 
with their trunks filled with gew-gaws and trin- 
kets purchased in Paris under the impression that 
they were rare and valuable, when the like might 
have been bought at any fancy-store on Broadway. 



28 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

And how often do we have a glowing description 
of an Italian sky from writers who have never 
once observed our own rich sunsets ; or of the Bay 
of Naples, from travelers who would not cross to 
Brooklyn Hights to view the noble harbor of New 
York. Men will go a thousand miles to view 
natural scenery, the like of which they might en- 
joy at their very doors if it were not so common 
and so near ! But what has all this to do with 
Lumberland ? Why I have been up among the 
mountains of New Hampshire in quest of the 
wild, the beautiful, the grand in nature, and be- 
hold here I find the same wild, romantic beauty, 
the same class of scenery — except that the hills 
do not rear their heads so high — gorges and 
ravines, rocks, woods, streams, rapids, and cascades, 
within half a day of the city ; and yet I can hardly 
venture to write about it because it is only in New 
York and on the banks of the Delaware, — on the 
line too of a railroad and a canal, where hundreds 
are passing daily. The banks of the Delaware ! 
Why I have been familiar with them from my 
childhood — but where the great city stretches for 
miles along and juts its wharves out into the river, 
with their dense rows of masts and puffing chim- 



REMINISCENCE OF CHILDHOOD. 29 

neys. The Jersey shore, too, — it was our swim- 
ming ground, where troops of school-boys spent 
the Saturday afternoon in aquatic sports; and 
then in winter what skating and sledding and 
sleighing too on the broad, glassy bosom of the 
river. But that was twenty years ago, when 
water used to freeze in winter, and before the ice- 
boat of the Eailroad Company insisted on keep- 
ing the channel open the winter through. 

But these banks of the Delaware are not famil- 
iar; so wild, so solitary, still tenanted by the 
deer, and just deserted by the Indian and the 
bear. Ah, I bethink me now with what childish 
curiosity I used to gaze on those huge rafts, cov- 
ered with piles of lumber, which came floating 
down the river, and to wonder where they came 
from, and who made them ; and then what sport 
it was to get on one of them when moored to the 
dock, and jump from log to log, and play at hide 
and seek behind the boards. I see now where 
they were made ; two hundred miles from Phila- 
delphia, by the windings of the river, here in 
this Lamber-lzmd. 

The banks of the Delaware at this point have a 
melancholy historic interest. Here it was that the 



30 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

brave men of Goshen were cut down by Colonel 
Brant and his party, the Indian allies of the Brit- 
ish in the Revolutionary War. On the western 
bank, near the aqueduct, the Indians held their 
midnight dance and carousal over the scalps of 
the slain, while a company of Jerseymen, en- 
camped near by, feared to attack them. A friend 
informed me that he had picked up a bone of the 
fore-arm on the battle-ground, and that recently 
a whole skeleton had been found there, though a 
few years since the remains of those who perished 
were gathered as far as possible and deposited to- 
gether under a suitable monument in Goshen. 
Alas ! the griefs and woes of war. 

But what a change ! The trampling war-steed 
has given place to the iron horse, and the war- 
whoop of the murderous savage to the shrill whis- 
tle of the locomotive. Along the western bank 
of the Delaware, within the Pennsvlvania line, 
from Port Jervis to Deposit, is laid the track of 
the Erie Eailroad. Here, as on the other side, 
the bank was often too narrow for the purpose, 
and had to be widened by blasting. Eiding thus 
on the edge of the bank, fifty feet above the river, 
on a narrow pathway overhung by rocks to the 



REMINISCENCE OF CHILDHOOD. 31 



height of from 200 to 500 feet, looking out upon 
the opposite bank where the canal traces its nar- 
row course as if grooved out of the rock which 
juts over it, — at times hemmed in by hills which 
seem to form the boundaries of this lower world, 
while the clear blue vault arches high above your 
head and is mirrored from the depths of the 
stream below — the trees decked in their autumnal 
hues, from never-fading green, through crimson, 
scarlet, yellow, to the dead, dull brown of decay 
— you catch glimpses of the wild and picturesque, 
which waken every fiber of the soul to extasy. 
And yet a pensive air steals over you as you re- 
flect that your image is not in the mountain or the 
rock, but in the passing cloud, the running stream, 
the fading leaf. It is well to take a lesson from 
Nature in the autumn ; and take John Foster with 
you, if you would learn how to read it. 



32 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 



%\ Itsbr's $nni* 

I SAW thee laid here months ago, 
In the deep, deep snow; 
I heard the cold earth heavy fall 

On the velvet pall 
That wrapped thee in thy bed so low, 
In the deep, deep snow. 

I stood beneath this pine-tree old, 

Where the wind swept cold ; 
I heard the voice of solemn prayer 

On the wild, bleak air ; 
Then gazed into thy chamber low, 

'Neath the deep, deep snow. 

Spring hath retouched this hallowed spot, 

But it woke thee not; 
And summer sunshine hath been here, 

Balmy, bright, and clear ; 
But still thy slumber hath been cold, 

'Neath this pine-tree old. 



* Mrs. Mary T. Okie, next to me in age, my play-mate in childhood, in 
youth my associate in literary studies and in the Christian profession, my 
counsellor in riper years, ihe gentle, the noble, the pure, the lovely, theirs* 
taken from my early home ; she sleeps at Laurel Hill, near Philadelphia. 



my sister's grave. 33 

In vain for thee do roses bloom 

O'er thy early tomb ; 
In vain are choicest lilies spread 

O'er thy perfumed bed — 
The voice of love thou hast not heard, 

Nor the song of bird. 

And now the summer too is past, 

Leaves are falling fast ; 
The winds are sweeping roughly by, 

Bleak and cheerlessly; 
And winter stern creeps on again, 

Over hill and plain. 

But no rude blast shall smite thy head 

In this lowly bed ; 
Unbroken still thy sleep shall be, 

Naught here troubleth thee — 
In summer's heat or winter's cold, 

'Neath this pine-tree old. 

Soon will I call to thee no more 

At the grave's dark door ; 
I'll come and lay this weary head 

With the peaceful dead ; 
This pine-tree old shall fade away — 

All things shall decay. 



34 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

Oh then ! when Time's last work is done, 

Death's last victory won, 
Forth from the quaking, rending tomb, 

With celestial bloom, 
Thy form renewed shall glorious rise 

Through the op'ning skies. 



TAKING up Bryant's Thanatopsis the other 
day for re-perusal, I was more than ever im- 
pressed with its sepulchral gloom, through which 
there gleams no ray of hope or consolation, no fire 
of immortality. A chill came over me as I laid 
the book aside and asked — Is this all that Philos- 
ophy, decked in the gorgeous attire of Poetry, can 
do to cheer the spirit in view of death? The 
last few lines of the poem will be immortal, be- 
cause that little word trust — though the poet does 



THE VISION OF DEATH. 35 

not intimate the object of that trust — awakens in 
the devout mind associations of faith and hope in 
Him who conquered death ; because by that little 
loop-hole the Christian may pour somewhat of his 
own light through the dark portal which the poet 
has reared for the mansion of the dead, thus 
transforming the huge frowning figures that beset 
the entrance into colossal pillars that support the 
massive arch while Faith and Hope pass safely 
under. 

AVhat comfort is there in the thought that I 
shall lie down in the same bed with patriarchs 
and kings and warriors, and all the past genera- 
tions of men ; that the winds, the streams, the 
forest leaves, the ever-rolling ocean shall sigh my 
requiem ; and that all the living in their countless 
generations shall follow me until the desolated 
globe shall swing silent and dark, a crowded sep- 
ulcher ? What comfort is there in the thought 
that death is the common, the universal fate of 
men ? Nay, does not this add rather to its gloom ? 
I can have no sympathy with a poem that offers 
such sentiments as the sum of its consolation in 
view of death. I turn from it as from the embrace 
of an iceberg. Gigantic it may be, and flashes of 



36 STKAY MEDITATIONS. 

various colored light may shoot from its surface — 
but it is cold, deathly cold. 

Death in itself is a gloomy event. It must be 
so. It was meant to be so. Nothing can relieve 
it but faith in Christ and immortality. A greater 
poet than Bryant has described the grave as a land 
of darkness, as darkness itself ; and of ike shadow 
of death, without any order, and vjhere the light is as 
darkness. 

Such was the view which a good man had of 
the grave, four thousand years ago. It is the 
only view possible where Christianity is unknown. 
And after all the light and warmth which Chris- 
tianity has shed around it, the grave is still a cold, 
dark place. It has no attractions ; it can have 
none. We may spread the rich turf over it ; we 
may adorn it with flowers which the hand and 
the tear of affection shall keep always in bloom ; 
we may surround it with shrubbery, to screen it 
from storms, and to seclude it from the noisy, care- 
less world ; the sunbeams may steal softly over it ; 
the birds may build their nests in the willow that 
bends at its head, and may warble their sweet 
notes on the balmy air ; fountains may be mur- 
muring near, and streams may go babbling by ; 



THE VISION OF DEATH. 37 

the evergreen may relieve even the cheerlessness 
of winter; but it is still the grave, — the cold, 
dark, silent grave. Faith may not fear it ; Hope 
may leap over it into the land of brightness and 
of joy immortal; care, toil, suffering, disappoint- 
ment may render death to the inconsiderate a wel- 
come relief; or the soul that pants after the full- 
ness of God may long for the dissolution of its 
earthly tabernacle ; — but none of all these things 
can make the grave inviting. 

The grave, indeed, is another place since Jesus 
slept there ; but only because he rose again. The 
light comes not from the grave, but from the re- 
surrection and from heaven beyond. The Chris- 
tian does not look upon death or the grave with 
so much of dread and repulsion as did Job ; he 
can look upon them not only without fear, but 
with feelings of triumph. But this is not because 
death and the grave are changed, but because the 
future is changed, because life and immortality are 
brought to light in the Gospel. The way by 
which we pass out of the world is still narrow, 
and dark, and cold, and clammy, though our 
sharpened vision may see sweet fields beyond, and 
our quickened ear may catch celestial strains. We 

3 



38 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

should look at death as it is, as we shall find it, 
that we may known how to rise above it. 

The Patriarch of Uz in his afflictions besought 
God to grant him a brief respite from suffering 
before death. His prayer resembled that of the 
Psalmist, "Oh spare me, that I may recover 
strength, before I go hence, and be no more." 
Looking upon death as the termination of all 
earthly good, and knowing but little, if anything, 
of the bliss that lies beyond, Job earnestly desired 
that his last days might be days of comfort. "Are 
not my days few ?" Must I not at all events soon 
die? " Cease then, and let me alone, that I may 
take comfort a little, before I go whence I shall 
not return, even to the land of darkness and the 
shadow of death, a land of darkness, as darkness 
itself, and of the shadow of death." No descrip- 
tion of Hades by the ancients can be compared 
with this in intensity; nor can any translation 
convey the deepening intensity of the original. 
The region of the dead is a land of darkness ; — 
covered with gloom; where Death like some 
frowning castle throws far and wide its somber 
shade ; it is darkness itself as when the sun goes 
down and the stars do not shine out ; it is the 



THE VISION OF DEATH. 39 

, — * — 

" deep darkness of the shadow of death." It is 
without any order ; — like the ancient chaos, with- 
out form and void — "a vast, immeasurable abyss, 
dark, wasteful, wild." 

11 Where even the light is as darkness," — the few 
rays that break in upon it are pale and somber, 
and serve only to heighten the gloom. Dark, all 
dark ; light itself transformed into darkness. 

Thus did the grave appear to one who could 
say of God, " Though he slay me, yet will I trust 
in him." Thus does it still appear often to the 
meditative mind. That narrow pit is dark with 
all the light of heaven over it ; the river of death 
is cold, though sunbeams are glancing on its sur- 
face. I want some surer support, some stronger 
consolation than Thanatopsis gives. Chilling in- 
deed is the vision of death, without the vision of 
life and immortality in Christ. 



40 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 



€1jb Jlnnlq 3$ urn, 

AS I sat alone in my chamber one dark and 
stormy night, I fell to musing about an in- 
fant's soul — whence it comes, of what it is formed, 
and how it is united to the body; and as I mused I 
dropped asleep. Suddenly I thought I was in a 
splendid palace ; its floor was polished marble that 
shone like glass ; its ceiling was so high that it 
seemed to be above the clouds, but I could trace 
upon it carvings and paintings of most exquisite 
forms and colors ; the hall was so vast that I could 
not see the walls on either side, but all around 
me on the marble pavement were beautiful images 
and ornaments of silver and gold, and foun- 
tains were playing, and jets of light were stream- 
ing from branches of gold and crystal. Above, 
it was all one blaze of light, yet I could see no 
luminous body, nor any artificial source from which 
the luster came. Far down the hall — as far as 



THE NEWLY BORN. 41 

my eye could reach — and stretching up from the 
pavement to the dome, were bands of angels with 
shining faces and pure white wings, some with 
trumpets of silver, some with harps of gold, and 
some with instruments that I had never seen, 
and the music of whLili was sweeter than any I 
had ever heard. I fairly cried for joy as I listened 
to the sweet sounds that came from that beautiful 
choir. Presently I saw in the distance a pure, bright 
flame, which grew brighter and brighter, and gradu- 
ally shaped itself into a throne white and dazzling. 
It was so bright I could not look upon it, but 
turned away my eyes. When I ventured again 
to glance that way, I saw what seemed to be a little 
speck of white floating toward me upon a beam 
from this throne, and as I looked it grew and 
spread itself till I beheld a dove, with soft, white 
wings, pure as snow, flying gently into my very 
arms. Overjoyed I put out my hands to clasp it, 
when from the angelic bands there came a burst 
of music louder and sweeter than before — the 
lights went out, the palace disappeared, — all was 
silent and dark, and I was sitting alone in my 
chamber. 

It was a dreary night. The wind was blowing, 



42 STKAY MEDITATIONS. 

the rain was falling, and the blinds swung and 
rattled as if they would break from their hinges. 
Presently I heard a noise like a gentle tapping on 
the window ; I listened for a moment and thought 
it was a gust of wind. Soon it came again, tap, 
tap — tap, tap, till wondering what it could mean, 
and half trembling with fear, I rose and went to 
the window. There I saw what seemed in the 
darkness to be a bird flapping its wings and dashing 
its bill against the pane. In a moment I perceived 
it was the same sweet dove that I had seen in the 
palace hall. I opened the window and took it in : 

Come in, come in, my pretty dove ; 

How cam'st thou here 
From that fair land of light and love, 

To this so drear ? 

" God sent me from my home above 
To this so drear, 
And bade me with His own pure love 
Thy heart to cheer." 

Come to my heart, my pretty dove 

And take thy rest; 
Come, nestle here with God's own love 

Upon my breast. 



T II E X E W L Y B R X . 43 

11 I'll fold my wings upon thy breast 

Although defiled ; 
I'll nestle here and be at rest 
As God's own child; 

" I've left my Father's house awhile 
To dwell with thee, 
To cheer thee with my Father's smile, 
Thy child to be ; 

" I'll stay with thee, come good, come ill, 
Xo more to roam ; 
Obedient, till my Father's will 
Shall call me home." 

I awoke and found it was a dream ; and yet it 
was not all a dream, for the joy of my dream re- 
mained, and I folded to my breast the pure, sweet 
gift of Heaven. 



44 STKAY MEDITATIONS. 



«!n 36irii unit ty* CjjillL 

m pHEEEY is dead, father," said my sweet little 
\J Mary to me one morning, with, a tear in 
her eye and sorrow in her tone ; " ain't you sorry 
Cherry is dead ? He will never sing for us any 
more." The favorite bird that we had nurtured 
for many a year, that was ours before it began to 
sing, and whose sweet notes had enlivened the 
house and filled our hearts with sympathetic music, 
was indeed dead. Sincere mourners were the 
children as they hid away the little senseless crea- 
ture in some by-place of their own, where no liv- 
ing thing might molest it, and as they expressed 
their regrets that they could no longer share with 
Cherry their daily food ; and with their sorrow 
came the questions of a child's philosophy, as to 
whither the bird had gone and whether they should 
ever see it again. 



THE BIRD AND THE CHILD. 45 

My thoughts flowed deeper and took a wider 
range. In the chamber where the little bird had 
died lay a sick and suffering child, and to the 
heart that had yearned over that little one there 
was unspeakable relief in the thought that the 
bird and not the child was dead. Never did the 
compassionate interest of the Saviour in little 
children appear to me so lovely and consoling. 
Indeed God careth for the little bird, and not a 
sparrow falleth to the ground without Him ; but 
for children he has covenanted grace and mercy, 
and has said, " Suffer them to come to me." How 
monstrous then seemed the doctrine of the anni- 
hilation of infants, to which even Dr. Watts and 
Dr. Emmons have given countenance — though the 
latter afterwards repudiated it. How cold and 
repulsive all such philosophizing and theologizing 
about the death of little children, when the heart- 
strings are touched by the reality present or in 
prospect. Is not something due to the instinctive 
assurance of parental affection that children dying 
in veriest infancy do live after death in a better 
world, — that somehow — we comprehend not how 
— they are numbered with the saved ? Does not 
that instinctive feeling harmonize with the intima- 



46 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

tions of Scripture respecting the future of such 
little ones ? I have not yet known what it is to 
surrender a child to the call of my Heavenly 
Father, but if I could speak to a sorrowing parent, 
with my present feelings, I would say that that in- 
stinctive feeling is a prophecy of Christian hope. 

You have a favorite bird that relieves your soli- 
tude by his merry song, that feeds from your 
hand, perches on your shoulder, and gambols on the 
carpet at your feet. You are conscious of a warm 
attachment to the little creature, which he seems 
to appreciate and to return. Some morning you 
miss his cheerful note; his matin warblings do 
not greet the rising sun ; and going to his cage 
you find him dead. A feeling of sadness comes 
over you. Yon grieve at the extinction of life in 
a creature to which life was all enjoyment; you 
grieve at the loss of a companion upon which yon 
had become more dependent for your own enjoy- 
ment than you were before aware. And yet you 
do not once think of that bird as living still in 
other climes; yon do not imagine that you shall 
ever see it again, nor think it strange that its ex- 
istence has come to an end. For affection's sake 
you may bury it in your garden instead of throw- 



THE BIRD AND THE CHILD. 47 

ing it into the street, or may have it embalmed for 
preservation ; more than this would be a profane 
burlesque upon the most solemn and tender rites. 
It gives you no shudder to think that the being of 
that bird is annihilated, Neither the exquisiteness 
of its structure, nor the softness and richness of 
its plumage, nor the melody of its song that en- 
livened your dwelling, suggests to you the 
thought that it cannot be utterly and forever dead. 

But God has given you another favorite, dearer 
far than bird of richest plumage and sweetest 
song — a prattling child that breaks your morning 
slumbers with its happy voice attempting to speak 
your name, that tries to win your notice by a 
thousand pretty arts, that manifests intelligence 
and affection though it knows not yet the use of 
language, that climbs upon your knee, or totters 
by your side, or gambols at your feet in boister- 
ous glee. Th#t child has not yet lived so long as 
your bird, nor has it made any like progress 
toward its maturity ; yet hath that child a hold 
upon your heart that no other creature can ever 
gain. 

Some morning you awake, but not at its call ; 
you listen for its voice but hear it not ; you go to 



48 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

its cradle to find it dead. Perhaps you had watched 
over it in sickness and had seen it fall into its last 
sleep, and having lain down to rest have awoke 
from a dream, forgetting for the instant that the 
child was" dead ; or perhaps some sudden and 
unknown cause has terminated its life when 
you knew it not. But ah! what grief and 
anguish now come over you. No song of bird 
can now relieve your aching heart. A sweeter 
voice is hushed in death ; a brighter, sunnier life 
has been extinguished. And yet you cannot for 
one moment feel that your child is utterly and for- 
ever gone. You seem to see his spirit hovering 
nigh. You know he is not dead. You call your 
friends and neighbors, and with solemn and decent 
rites commit his body to the dust — not for affec- 
tion's sake alone, but for hope's sake also — for a 
voice within you says, { I shall see him yet again.' 
And has God implanted in us th^e unutterable 
yearnings of affection only to be crushed and dis- 
appointed forever? Nay; the fond hopes that 
gush out with our tears, and so relieve our loss, and 
make us serene in sorrow, are angel voices whis- 
pering to us of immortality in the mansions of 
the blessed, Weep not, fond heart, for the child 



THE CHILD DEAD. 49 

departed; "he is not dead, but sleepeth;" "/ 
shall go to him but he shall not return to me" The 
voice of nature teacheth thee what God hath for- 
borne to reveal in his Word. It needs no revela- 
tion to assure thee that thy child hath not met the 
fate of thy bird ; but hath soared to the empy- 
rean of the blessed, which wing of bird essays 
in vain. 



€)t cy\\\ But 

KTjlDDIE is dead" said I to my little Mary one 
-Li morning, after a night of anxious watching 
over the suffering babe. " Your dear little brother 
is dead. You will never hold him in your lap 
again ; you will never see him smile so sweetly as 
you talk to him ; you will never see again his 
bright and beautiful eyes that you loved to look 
at, nor feel his soft little hand in yours. To mor- 



50 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

row they will put him in a coffin and carry him 
away ; and you will never again see him here. Do 
not cry so, do not cry, for Eddie is happy now in 
Heaven, and if you are good and love God and 
the blessed Saviour, you will go to heaven too, 
and see your sweet little brother again." Thus 
with choked utterance and sobbing heart did I 
comfort my dear children under the first impression 
of death ; its first impression, for though they had 
sorrowed a moment for Cherry they felt a strange 
and solemn grief as they looked upon the face of 
their infant brother cold in death. To me also it 
was a strange experience ; yet the heart had so 
long foreboded the greatest of earthly griefs, that 
this seemed rather a relief than a burden. How sweet 
the thought that I already had a child in heaven ! 
My child, the same pure, gentle dove that had 
flown from Heaven into my arms, — still mine, and 
always to be mine, though with me here only for 
the first few days of its immortal being. I cannot 
release my hold upon that child in Heaven. 

I once visited a family circle where to temporal 
prosperity and social refinement was added the 
grace of a cheerful piety, diffusing itself from pa- 
rents to children, and sweetly blending in all the 



THE CHILD DEAD. 51 

affairs of the household. The children, of various 
ages, from prattling infancy to blooming girlhood 
and aspiring manhood, were like olive-plants 
around the table. But between two of that thriv- 
ing row there was a wider interval, a double dis- 
tance in age and stature, denoting that from that 
space had been removed the plant that once had 
bloomed there. One child had been taken from 
the bosom of that family to the great family above. 
And yet it seemed as if that child was daily 
present ; for on the table at every meal was placed 
the silver cup from which she used to drink, now 
left untouched; and from the wall smiled ever 
that cherub face through auburn ringlets, as the 
almost creative art of the painter had won it back 
from the embrace of death. Yes, she was present 
still as an angel in that little band to which she 
was once so dear. 

To some the placing of that cup upon the table 
may seem an idle superstition ; to others a senti- 
mental weakness. But it was dictated neither by 
a Romish idolatry, nor by a Swedenborgian 
vagary. . Parental affection, chastened by sorrow, 
sought thus to retain in all the associations of the 
family one who was still of the family, though far 



52 STEAY MEDITATIONS. 

away ; and to retain her as she was, in the fresh- 
ness and innocence of childhood, at the table with 
her silver cup, marked with her own name, and 
which no other might use. And why should the 
child whom God hath taken be kept out of mind, 
and every memento of her put out of sight? 
How sweet to think of her as not lost, but still 
living, still present as a child ! 

God mercifully opens to us new sources of joy 
as we pass on through the successive changes of 
life. When we must leave our early home, he 
provides for us another, with new objects of affec- 
tion, and instead of our parents He gives us chil- 
dren. And when this home shall be broken up 
also, He has prepared for us another which shall 
never change ; and as the time draws near for us 
to remove thither, He draws out from our hearts 
one golden link after another, and fastens it there ; 
He gathers for us objects of affection in our 
heavenly home. What is all the joy that parents 
find in children on earth, compared with the joy 
of having a child in heaven ? 



"suffer little children." 53 



"$tin I'm (Tjiilkra." 

THOUGH there is no direct and positive teach- 
ing in the Scriptures respecting the future 
condition of children that die in infancy, yet the 
intimation of their blessedness given by Christ 
himself, is most cheering and satisfactory to the 
bereaved parent. " Suffer little children, and for- 
bid them not, to come unto me ; for of such is the 
kingdom of heaven." Matt. 19 : 14. 

By "the kingdom of heaven" in this passage, 
some commentators understand the Church of 
Christ on earth ; and they regard the entire pas- 
sage as only a commendation of a pure, docile, 
and child-like spirit; "of such as these — persons 
like these in disposition — shall my Church be 
composed." But this does not appear to me to be 
the true interpretation of the Saviour's language. 
These words were not spoken on that occasion 
when Jesus, in order to teach his disciples humility, 



54 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

called a little child and set him in the midst of 
them, and told them that they must become as lit- 
tle children if they would enter the kingdom of 
heaven. The subject of his remarks was not hu- 
mility, or the character becoming his disciples, or 
the condition of salvation. He was talking about 
children. Children were brought to him to receive 
his blessing. His disciples regarding this as an 
idle superstition, and presuming that it would be 
an annoyance to their Master, rebuked those that 
brought them, and thrust them back. But Jesus 
said, "No; you do not understand the value of 
these children, or their relation to my kingdom ; 
you do not know how dear they are to me and to 
my Father. Suffer little children to come to me, 
and forbid them not ; for of such is the kingdom 
of God. 7 ' Now such must here be taken as a de- 
finitive adjective, and not as an adjective or adverb 
of comparison. There are other passages in which 
the same word and phrase occurs, where it is evi- 
dently so used. 

For example : In directing the Corinthian 
church to discipline the incestuous person, Paul 
says, " deliver such an one to Satan." (1 Cor 5 : 5.) 
By such an one he means that particular person — 



"suffer little children." 55 

the man who has been guilty of this crime. Such 
identifies the individual. 

So in 2 Cor. 12 : 2-5, where he is speaking 
modestly and in the third person of his own vis- 
ions, he says, " I knew a man in Christ above 
fourteen years ago, such an one caught up to the 
third heaven. ... I knew such a man. ... Of 
such an one will I glory." Here the word such 
refers to the particular person of .whom he is 
speaking — i. e. himself. So when Christ said, with 
little children in his arms, and in order to give 
his disciples right views about children, " Of such 
is the kingdom of heaven," he did not mean that 
heaven is made up of persons having some resem- 
blance to children, but of these as a class, and 
others like them. And when we reflect that the 
vast majority of the human race die in infancy, 
we may well give the words a literal signification 
— of such is the kingdom of heaven. It is in this 
way, through the salvation of myriads of infants, 
that the number of the saved will in the end so 
far exceed the number of the lost. Christ was 
speaking of children, and not of men with the dis- 
position of children ; the very act of taking the 
children in his arms and blessing them, requires 



56 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

that we should so understand him ; otherwise that 
act has no meaning. It was after he had per- 
formed that act and made that declaration about 
children themselves, that he made the remark 
given by Mark and Luke, that whoever would 
enter the kingdom of God must receive it as a lit- 
tle child. That declaration was based, by way of 
inference, upon ' the preceding declaration, that 
children as such should be admitted to heaven. It 
is as if he had said, " Why thrust children away 
from me ? why seek to debar them from my bles- 
sing ? Heaven is full of little children ; instead 
of keeping children back from me as of no ac- 
count, look to it that you become like them, or 
you shall not enter heaven yourselves." 

This seems to be the only interpretation that 
meets the occasion, and gives consistency and force 
to the language of the Saviour. This is the gram- 
matical construction of De Wette ; and if ortho- 
dox vouchers are wanted, Calvin so understands 
the passage, and Dr. Griffin quotes it to prove that 
infants shall be saved. 

Christian parents have in these words abundant 
consolation in the death of their infant children. 
If those children die in early infancy, before they 



"SUFFER little children." 57 

have formed a moral character, there is every rea- 
son to believe that they are removed at once to a 
brighter sphere ; if they die later, yet before their 
understanding is matured, there may still be ground 
to hope that they are saved through the grace of 
Christ. Besides, where there is due fidelity and 
prayerfulness, the seeds of grace are often early 
sown in the mind of a child, and there is hope of 
true piety though we cannot look for its maturer 
fruits. For many a dear child, taken from the 
world just as reason and conscience were unfold- 
ing and the knowledge of God was entering its 
mind, we may adopt the joyful lament of the poet 
for early piety departed : — 

" It is not length of years that lends 
The brightest loveliness to those 
Whose memory with our being blends, 
Whose love within our bosom glows. 

" The age we honor standeth not 

In locks of snow, or length of days; 
But in a life which knows no spot, 

A heart which heavenly wisdom sways. 

" For wisdom taught by heavenly truth, 
Unlike mere worldly w T isdom, finds 
Its full maturity in youth, 
Its antetype in infant minds. 



58 STKAY MEDITATIONS. 

" Thus was this child made early wise — 
Wise as those sages, who from far 
Beheld at once in Bethlehem's skies 
The new-born Saviour's herald star. 

" No more could learning do for them 

Than guide them in the path they trod ; 
And the same star of Bethlehem 
Led this child's spirit to his God. 

11 Well may his memory be dear 

Whose loss is still its sole alloy — 
Whose happy lot dries every tear, 
With holy hope and humble joy. 

" * The brightest star in morning's host ' 
Is that which shines in twilight skies ; 
* Scarce ris'n, in brighter beams 'tis lost,' 
And vanishes from mortal eyes. 

" Its loss inspires a brief xegret ; 
Its loveliness is unforgot ; 
We know full well 'tis shining yet, 
Although we may behold it not." 

Bernard Barton. 



WATCHING FOR DEATH. 59 



IBtttrjjing for Snttlj. 

DID you ever watch for Death to enter your 
dwelling ? How strange the feeling ! An in- 
definable awe steals over your soul, as in breath- 
less expectation you listen for his footstep. For 
hours, perhaps for days, you have been admon- 
ished of his approach, and with aching heart, 
through weary nights, you have awaited his com- 
ing. Now you are told that he is near. At the 
call of the watcher you have risen from your 
troubled sleep to see a loved one die. As you sit 
by the fire in your dimly-lighted chamber, where 
every step is hushed, and scarce a breath is audi- 
ble, strange shadows flit before you, and intermin- 
gled with these, holy memories revisit your soul. 
Presently 3 r ou are startled by a sigh, a groan, a 
convulsive shudder. Was that he ? lias Death 
come at last ? No : life still gurgles there, and, 



60 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

strange though, it may seem, you catch a glimmer- 
ing of hope from the fact that another struggle 
has been survived. As well might you suppose 
the tide was rising because the receding wave 
seems at first to creep upward along the beach. 
But you breathe more freely ; you wait awhile 
for some decisive sign of death, and then sit down 
again to your meditations. You call to mind the 
promises of the Gospel; you engage in silent 
prayer ; you find comfort and support in God ; 
and yet an unwonted sadness diffuses itself over 
all your thoughts and feelings. You are looking 
for something, you know not what. 

You have often watched at midnight for a tardy 
guest, listening to every footfall, starting at every 
sound, your mind bewildered with strange fancies, 
your heart palpitating with unreasoned fears. But 
never have you watched for such a visitor. You 
know not when, or where, or how to look for him ; 
he will enter by no door ; he will make no formal 
announcement ; but come he will. Again you 
are called to the bedside of the dying one, and 
again ; but death still lingers, and hope revives. 
And now, with conflicting emotions, you once 
more resume your seat by the fading embers, to 



WATCHING FOR DEATH. 61 

meditate and watch. Presently all grows strange- 
ly still. The silence is deep, is awful. You are 
again at the bedside. Is the loved one sleeping ? 
Ah ! there is no motion, no sign of life. The lips 
are fixed as marble, the eyes are set in their sock- 
ets. But how quiet, — how calm ! Is he really 
dead? You were watching for Death, and he 
came, and you heard him $ot. You heard him 
not ; but now that he is here, his footstep rever- 
berates through your inmost soul. A gush of 
grief, a broken prayer, first break the dreary si- 
lence, and bring you to the consciousness that 
Death has come ! 

One day I shall watch the coming of Death to 
me, and while others see him not, I shall feel his 
cold hand upon my heart-strings, and hear his 
summons in my palsied ear. This year thou 
mayest die. Watch, then, for the coming of the 
last Messenger ! 



62 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 



HOW painful is tlie first breacli in the family 
circle. You have known — have always 
known that sooner or later Death, must enter 
that circle ; but you have never realized it, never 
felt it until now. You have lived on from year to 
year with your family growing up around you, or 
you have moved on with the same happy group 
within which you first came to the consciousness 
of life, and parents and brothers and sisters are all 
relatively the same to you now as then ; you see 
no change, and seldom think of change ; indeed, 
you have settled down into a practical conviction 
that in these happy relations there is to be no 
change. But at length Death comes, and the 
shock he gives to your every sensibility, startles 
you from the dream in which you have lived, and 
shows you how utterly you had deceived yourself 
with delusive hopes. Then comes the terrible 



THE FIRST BREACH. 63 

realization of what you have always known, but 
have never half believed. Your honored father, 
your loved and venerated mother, your husband in 
the prime of his manhood, your wife, in the flower 
of her beauty and the warmth of her affections, your 
son, your daughter, budding into life and promise, 
or your gentle babe, the petted lamb of all your 
flock, lies silent in death. 

What a strange feeling of uncertainty now 
steals over you. The affliction may have come 
in the gentlest form, and Mercy may strew with 
flowers the very bed of death ; but the breach is 
made, and you no longer live in a charmed circle. 
Sickness, heretofore no stranger in your family, 
now brings unwonted anxiety and fear ; it comes 
with the association of death ; your sleep is bro- 
ken, your nerves are disquieted by any symptom 
of disease in your household. Life takes on another 
aspect ; it grows more somber and earnest ; it loses 
its wonted elasticity ; it no longer unwinds from an 
endless reel ; you see its end, or at every moment 
you expect the thread will snap. A new expe- 
rience, a new world of thought and emotion is 
opened to you, and henceforth you will live in that 
world. 



64 s t r a y yvr e d i"t a t i o n s . 

Such an experience sooner or later all will have ; 
and it will be a blessed or a mournful experience, 
according as the heart is ' spiritual *[or worldly. 
Happy will you be in the midst of your sorrow, if 
this breach in your family circle shall open more 
widely the channel of divine grace, that the full 
tide of heavenly love may flow in upon your soul. 
Blessed be God there is a family — a glad circle of 
love, and peace, and joy, — in which there will be 
no breach, and no change forever. 



ii rpHE moths have eaten the carpet, sir," said 
J- Mrs. to me one morning, when the an- 
nual process of house-cleaning had disclosed the 
ravages of these tiny destroyers. It was a bright, 
new carpet, costly in itself, and doubly valued as 
the gift of friends. I stood and looked upon the 
work of destruction that tad gone forward secretly, 



MOTH-EATEN. 65 

silently, in every covered spot and every dark 
corner of the parlors, and a momentary regret 
arose in my heart for the loss it had occasioned 
me; but this was immediately succeeded by a 
feeling of utter indifference. To the question 
what should be done to exterminate the ruinous 
insect and to preserve what remained of the muti- 
lated tapestry, I made some mechanical reply and 
then mechanically turned away. Ah! the eye 
that had been so prompt to detect such intruders 
was now sealed, and the hand that had guarded 
with jealous care the household property was mo- 
tionless. My heart too ivas moth-eaten. 

Months ago this tiny insect deposited under the 
sofa and the library the eggs that had since issued 
into gnawing worms ; months ago the moths of 
care and grief made their first and almost imper- 
ceptible deposits in my heart. I knew they were 
there, but no earthly specific could destroy them. 
And now how many bright and beauteous images 
of hope, how many sweet pictures of love, how 
many buds and flowers of promise have they 
marred and devoured. My heart is riddled and 
fritters away. There are some sound spots where 
love and hope still linger, and I may patch it up 



66 STRAY MEDITATION'S. 

till others shall think it whole again, but / shall 
never forget that the moth has been there and has 
eaten out its center. I have sold my moth-eaten 
carpet for a song, but I must keep my moth-eaten 
heart. Yet, blessed be Grod, my heart's brightest, 
dearest love, its sweetest hope, its purest joy, its 
chiefest treasure, are where no moth doth corrupt. 



Cju Drsnbfr if o vii; 



i 



Y house is empty, and my heart — 
From every treasure torn apart — 
Oppressed with the unwonted gloom 
Roves restless round each vacant room. 

Sometimes it saith, " They must be near ; ,! 
I still their voice, their footsteps hear, 
I haste to seek — but find them not, 
And weep afresh my lonely lot. 



THE DESERTED HOUSE. 67 

Sometimes with eager step I come 
To meet the wonted " Welcome Home," 
I bound impatient up the stair — 
But start to think she is not there. 

I knoio alas, she is not here, 
But still I feel her presence near; 
My heart anon forgets its pain 
And leaps to clasp her heart again. 

She is not here ; — but they she bore, 
Now tenfold dearer than before, 
Will not they cheer this lonely place 
And soothe me with their fond embrace ? 

Alas ! one in his infant rest 
Lies slumbering on his mother's breast; 
The living now, with many a prayer, 
I've yielded to another's care. 

I see their pictures on the wall, 
I find their playthings in the hall ; 
I start to think that they are gone, 
And weep to know — I am alone. 



68 STRAY MEDITATION'S. 



^Jinking €nn 3#ttrjh 

MEN commonly think too little. Some purposely 
avoid reflection through, fear of the rebukes 
of conscience ; but most persons simply omit self- 
reflection as a daily exercise, or suffer the pressure 
of business, the attractions of society, or the allure- 
ments of pleasure to crowd it out of place. There 
is in general a want of the reflective habit and es- 
pecially of the habit of introspection. This habit 
is fostered by Christianity. Indeed the world is 
largely indebted to the religion of the Bible for 
the development of a meditative mood in the mind 
of man, and for any approximation to a just phi- 
losophy of mind ; and this not only by the out- 
ward and visible projection* that the Bible makes 
of certain mental phenomena, but especially by 
the habit of scrutinizing its own processes and 
cognitions that the Bible forms in every mind that 
comes under its power. 



THINKING TOO MUCH. 69 

It is true, as Isaac Taylor remarks, that "a 
quiescent under-action of the mind " was favored 
by the climate of the East, by physical habits, and 
by a nomadic state of society ; and under such in- 
fluences speculative philosophy, which, as well as 
poetry, is indigenous to the East, may have origi- 
nated. The influence of these causes may be 
traced in the Hebrew Scriptures, especially in the 
Psalms. Yet after all it was the religion of the 
Bible, a religion grasping ever the inward, the un- 
seen, the spiritual, the eternal, which more than 
any influence of climate or condition gave to the 
patriarch, to the prophet, and to the ancient He- 
brew his devout and meditative turn, and has 
grafted that same habit upon the more active and 
" calculating n nations of the West. The more 
the mind comes under the power of that religion 
the more is it disposed to seasons of retirement, in 
which it may commune with itself and with God, 
with the Past and with the Future, with Death 
and with Immortality. The universal prevalence of 
Christianity would have a wonderful effect upon 
the intellectual development of the race. The 
habit of reflection would become universal ; and 
the " quiescent under-action of the mind " would 



70 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

restrain the tumult of passion, the clamor of 
business, and the boisterous mirth of unlicensed 
pleasure. 

Sometimes, however, men think too much. 
This they do not of choice but by unavoidable 
necessity. Thought runs loose and wild; the 
flood-gates of reflection, of imagination, of emo- 
tion, at once are opened, and great surging waves 
roll in upon the soul. Eeason and Will are pros- 
trate, the ship refuses to obey the helm, and a 
tumult of thoughts, like an angry sea lashed by 
the tempest, drives it every whither. This is true 
when the mind is under the strong excitement of 
fear, of grief, of conviction, whenever in short the 
emotive development is intense and the excitement 
of the Sensibility disturbs the nice balance of the 
Intellect and the Will. First, feeling overmasters 
thought, and then all the resources of memory, of 
imagination, of invention, and the most concen- 
trated intenseness of reflection, are plied by the 
passion that excites the soul. The mind is a vast 
cauldron into which oceans are poured and find no 
bottom and no vent. Reflections, memories, hopes, 
fears, imaginations, promises, threatenings, cares, 
griefs, boil and surge together and know no rest. 



THINKING TOO MUCH. 71 

What a reach of capacity does such a soul ex- 
hibit ! What vast outlooks upon the Infinite and 
the Eternal does it present across its ever-rolling 
seas of thought. It thinks of all its Past ; its own 
past history, its every experience, its every act, 
the course of Providence, the varied intercourse 
and relations of life, the history of the world as 
illustrative of its own position and of Divine 
Providence, the whole Past from the creation 
down, nay more — the eternity of God himself in 
his being, his attributes, and his plans — these all, 
in one mighty stream, empty themselves in a mo- 
ment through the chasm of memory into this 
fathomless sea of emotion, and yet it is not full. 
The Present is there ; its cares, its burdens, its per- 
plexities, its sorrows, its responsibilities, all duties 
and obligations, individual, domestic, social, pub- 
lic, the wants and claims of the family, the church, 
and the world, these all, like mountain torrents, 
pour in on every side, and yet the sea is not full. 
From another quarter rolls in the broad and ever 
swelling tide of the Future ; its hopes and fears, 
its dangers, its promises, its plans, all possible 
knowledges and experiences in this life and in 
eternity, and the boundless reach of the infinity 



72 STKAY MEDITATIONS. 

of God, roll their waves into this all-devouring 
reservoir of the soul of man. What a capacity is 
that which can drink in all things, past, present, 
and to come, and yet not be filled. But this wild 
tumult of thought, this mingling of the floods of 
time and of eternity is more than human nature 
can endure. The soul is adequate for this, but the 
body sinks under it. The brain reels, the heart 
quails, the knees totter beneath the stupendous 
pressure. The waves of emotion threaten to dash 
down their banks of clay. 

But He who created both soul and body, and 
who adjusted their subtle union, has made pro- 
vision against such a catastrophe as the dissolution 
of the body under the excitement of the mind. 
He can calm the most tumultuous agitation of the 
mind, and give it perfect peace. In the multitude 
of my thoughts within me, thy comforts delight my 
soul. 



TROUBLED THOUGHTS. 73 



Crnttlibfr <K Ij n it g Ij t s . 

¥HEN the Psalmist speaks of "the multitude 
of his thoughts," he means anxious, troubled 
thoughts, perplexity and distress of mind. "I 
had much solicitude in my heart; but thy conso-" 
lations delighted me." "What a multitude of 
troubled thoughts arise from any overaction of 
the sensibility ! 

Thoughts of personal guilt are wont to arise in 
the mind of the Christian in such a state. No 
mental excitement can be compared in force with 
that of conviction of sin when the mind comes 
fully under its power ; no anguish can equal this 
in nature or intensity. The deep self-abasement 
of David and of Job, the criminations of Brainerd, 
of Edwards, and of Payson against themselves, 
in terms that indicate to many a morbid conscience 
or a relentless Calvinism, are the simple reflection 



74 STKAY MEDITATIONS. 

of that mood of the soul in which the sense of 
guilt is quickened aside from the consciousness of 
pardon. This phase of experience arises not only 
under reflection upon past conduct, but often inci- 
dentally from some other exciting cause which 
distorts the mental vision, and presents every ob- 
ject with the keen and tormenting sensation of a 
hydro-oxygen light upon an eye diseased. The 
mind, excited by calamity or from whatever cause, 
will ofttimes revert to its own dereliction of duty 
as the occasion of its grief, and will write bitter 
things against itself. Once its thoughts are turned 
into that channel they pour on unceasingly ; now 
swollen and turbid, now wild and foaming, now 
black and sullen. The soul attempts to fathom 
its own depths, but the multitude of accusing and 
condemning thoughts that roll tumultuously with- 
in, defy the soundings of reason or of faith. 
None can doubt that there is a hell who has had 
the flood-gates of its fiery gulf thus opened with- 
in himself. 

Thoughts of personal danger bewilder the ex- 
cited mind. Let loose from its anchorage it is 
driven of fierce winds and tossed. Dangers mul- 
tiply on every hand. That which in calmer moods 



TROUBLED THOUGHTS. 75 

it would not count a danger, or which it would 
meet unflinchingly, now terrifies it like the vision 
of Eliphaz. It has met with a sudden loss or be- 
reavement ; a ship has gone down at sea, a house 
has been consumed by fire, a parent, child, sister, 
brother, husband, wife has been snatched avray by 
death, or the person has narrowly escaped some 
great disaster, and now every storm forbodes the 
destruction of property, every alarm of fire is a 
new agitation, every symptom of disease is the 
grim herald of death, every journey is a peril, 
danger lurks in every breath. Sometimes to these 
nervous apprehensions are added the fierce buffet- 
ings of Satan, who shakes the soul with terrible 
alarm. The " terror by night" drives sleep from 
weary, aching eyes. 

Anxieties for the future agitate the mind. A sud- 
den change of relations has brought upon the 
soul a sea of cares. The widowed father finds 
the training of children who were pliant under 
their mother's softest tone or look, a strange and 
perplexing task to one busied with the general 
cares of life and unwonted to its gentler assidui- 
ties. The widowed mother finds the providing 
for her household, the arranging of business 



76 STKAY MEDITATIONS. 

affairs, the governing and counseling of lier elder 
children, — matters which had gone so smoothly in 
other hands that she had scarce given them a 
thought, — now crowding sharply upon her, and 
filling her way with perplexities — a hedge of thorns 
in the once rosy path of life. And when once the 
mind is adrift upon the sea of uncertainty, all 
things, temporal and spiritual, present and eternal, 
are shrouded in gloom. 

Then cares like a wild deluge come, 
And storms of sorrow fall. 

Doubt, unbelief, and fear ofttimes disturb the 
quiet of the soul in such a state of agitation. 
Perplexities about Providence, about the course 
of events and the principles of the divine govern- 
ment, perhaps even atheistic thoughts like those 
of "The Preacher" and of Asaph touching the 
very fact of the divine government over the world, 
roll tumultuously upon the soul and give it no 
rest. This was the trouble of the Psalmist. The 
prosperity of the wicked, their triumph over the 
just, their boasts against God and his people, al- 
most shook his confidence in God himself. His 



TROUBLED THOUGHTS. 77 

thoughts were greatly disturbed. " Who will 
rise up for me against the evil-doers, or who will 
stand up for me against the workers of iniquity ? 
Unless the Lord had been my help, my soul had 
almost dwelt in silence. When I said, My foot 
slippeth ; thy mercy, O Lord, held me up. In 
the multitude of my thoughts within me, — in all 
my perplexities concerning thy government and 
ways, — thy comforts delight my soul." How ter- 
rible were the surges of doubt that rolled over 
the mind of Blanco White, now dashing him 
against the cold, castellated rocks of formalism, 
now throwing him awhile upon the smooth, peb- 
bly beach of a pure and simple faith, but ere he 
had gained a footing there, dragging him by their 
fearful undertow a hopeless wreck into the abyss 
of pantheism. 

Thoughts of emptiness, desertion, loneliness, deso- 
lation, distract the mind under such an excitement 
of the sensibility. When property is swept away 
' — when the loved one dies — when character is as- 
sailed — when friends prove false, it seems at first 
as if everything were gone. A prop is broken, 
and the whole frame feels the jar; and while set- 
tling down into its new position, it seems to be 



78 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

falling into ruin. Any sudden disappointment, 
loss, or grief — any sudden rupture of tender ties 
— so cheapens the soul's estimate of remaining 
good, that in the comparison there is nothing 
left ; it is empty and forsaken. Of all experiences 
this is the most trying. Of all the anxious thoughts 
that crowd the mind, these thoughts of emptiness, 
of loneliness, of desolation, do most weigh upon 
it like the nightmare, in which the sufferer is con- 
scious of his own helplessness under the burden 
that crushes him, and cannot utter even a stifled 
cry for sympathy and aid. 

In this experience the blessed Eedeemer of 
mankind has shared, or rather stands pre-eminent. 
His loneliness in the garden, when all forsook him 
and fled — his appalling sense of desertion on the 
cross, when the Father himself forsook him, are 
a type of sorrow that no other mortal experience 
can ever realize. Yet something of this bitter 
agony often mingles with the multitude of anxious 
thoughts that harass an excited mind. 

The mind in such a state is vexed also with 
v ague and shifting plans. Imagination roves with- 
out restraint; multiplies its schemes of comfort 
and relief, then dashes them into air, and thus 



TROUBLED THOUGHTS. 79 

harasses the mind with vacillation and with dis- 
appointment. And the disajDpointment of unreal 
plans is often more harassing than of plans that 
have a foundation ; in the latter, the possibility of 
failure is an element in the calculation ; but, in 
the former, all is ideal and beautiful ; the pleasure 
floats on wings of gossamer within our grasp, it 
shines a globe of light of every hue, and reflects 
in gorgeous colors each hope and purpose of the 
soul — but we touch it and it bursts, and not so 
much as a fragment can be gathered to reconstruct 
the vision. Castle building is a pleasant pastime 
for youth ; but sad, sad is it when the soul is al- 
ready thick strewn with ruined hopes, for a way- 
ward fancy to taunt it with fresh visions that van- 
ish in its very grasp. Imagination — the gentle 
handmaid of faith and hope — is a tyrant hag 
when in the tumult of the thoughts she essays to 
rule. 

And is there no relief from these multiplied 
distresses? Has the mind no resource against 
itself ? Peace, troubled soul ! turn from this tu- 
multuous sea of thoughts to the divine consola- 
tions. 



80 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 



Sbittj (CnttsnUtbtis, 

THERE is a remedy for troubled and perplexing 
thoughts, — one remedy, and only one. This 
is not in mere force of will. Powerful as is the 
human will, it is no match for the excited sensi- 
bility. The will can resist truth, motive, argu- 
ment, appeal, — it can even resist the Spirit of God 
and all the forces that Omnipotence arrays against 
it from without, but it cannot withstand the tumult 
of the mind itself when thought runs wild through 
the excitement of emotion. The helmsman is 
driven from his post by the surging billows, and 
as often as he attempts to regain it he is dashed 
prostrate and impotent upon the deck, or swept 
overboard into the sea. The will cannot govern in 
such a storm. And herein is an evidence of God's 
moral government over men, in that He can thus 
turn upon the soul a flood of memories and of 



DIVINE CONSOLATIONS. 81 

fears from which it cannot deliver itself except by 
his good pleasure. 

• The diversions of the world will not allay such 
an excitement of the mind. When the mind is 
agitated with excessive grief or fear, it loses all 
relish for worldly pleasures. These are a mockery 
to it. Every passion of the soul is absorbed in 
the present or impending calamity. The most in- 
toxicating pleasures of the world are but as vine- 
gar and gall to one in the agonies of crucifixion. 
Even though for a while one should be diverted 
from his harassing cares or griefs by some transi- 
tory pleasure, yet the cause of his painful excite- 
ment remains, and his trouble returns with a vio- 
lence the greater for its brief respite. 

Neither can Time minister effectively to a mind 
thus disturbed. Time may have a soothing in- 
fluence upon grief, it may lessen burdens, quiet 
fears, and alleviate sorrows; but time alone can- 
not restore the disturbed balance of the mind, or 
secure it against fresh outbreaks of anguish, or 
fresh inroads of fear. 

There is but one remedy for distracting thoughts, 
and this the Psalmist found in divine consolations. 
In the multitude of my thoughts within me, THY 
COMFORTS delight my soul. 



82 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

The character of God gives consolation to the 
troubled mind, if that mind has ever learned 
to look to God and to confide in Him, Is the 
mind disturbed with thoughts of personal guilt ? 
Does conviction stir its depths like a troubled 
sea? The mercy of God, rich, boundless, free, 
a mercy that like a greater sea, vast, calm, and 
fathomless, swallows up all other seas in its stu- 
pendous tide — rolls in upon the soul a fullness 
of peace that " passeth all understanding." 

Is the mind agitated with doubts and apprehen- 
sions for the future ? The goodness and the truth 
of God, unsearchable and unchangeable, bring to 
it an assurance of comfort and support. Is the 
mind perplexed with the providential dealings of 
God — with, the prosperity of the wicked and the 
oppression of the just ? The infinite justice of 
God beaming through the clouds and darkness 
that surround his throne, brings consolation and 
hope in the darkest hour. And thus through all 
the fluctuating emotions of the soul, and in all 
its varying phases, there is in the character of 
God when fairly developed to its view, some 
specific adaptation to its support and consolation. 

The Government of God is a source of consola- 



DIVINE CONSOLATIONS. 83 

tion to the troubled spirit. Indeed there is no 
true consolation that does not involve a recognition 
of the divine government. The waves of care 
and sorrow will dash us every whither until we 
plant our feet upon the everlasting granite of the 
sovereignty of God. Here the Psalmist found 
relief from all his perplexities respecting wicked 
men. " Thy righteousness, God, is very high. 
My tongue shall talk of thy righteousness all the 
day long? 

It is not enough" that one should believe in the 
existence of God or acknowledge in a general way 
his attributes, — he must believe in the govern- 
ment of God as a reality, a present fact, and upon 
that he can lean with absolute assurance. The 
rugged, cloud-capped mountain that strikes him 
with awe, gives him a refuge and defense. 

The promises of God shed consolation over the 
troubled spirit. These promises are at once spe- 
cific and comprehensive. The Lord is nigh to all 
them that call upon him. Call upon me in the day 
of trouble, I ivill deliver thee. Fear not, little flock, 
for it is yovr Father's good pleasure to give you 
the kingdom. We know that all things work [are 
working] together for good to them that love God. 



84 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

« 

Well may such comforts delight the soul ; rich, 
abundant, adapted to its every want. Such strong 
consolation have they who flee for refuge to lay 
hold upon the hope set before them. 

But higher than all these consolations, and in- 
volving all these, is that which springs from the 
presence of God realized unto the soul. " When 
thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee ; 
and through the rivers, they shall not overfloiv thee ; 
when thou walkest through the Are, thou shalt not be 
burned ; neither shall the flames kindle upon thee. 
For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Is- 
rael, thy Saviour. 11 And is this indeed so? Is 
God my Saviour with me as I go through the fire 
and the flood? What matter the perils of the 
sea, the violence of the winds, the madness of the 
waves, if Jesus is with me in the boat ? Though 
he seem to be sleeping I am safe. He will arouse 
in time to save me. He will rebuke the tempest 
and on the instant there shall be a great calm. 
Ah, let it not be that he shall rebuke me also 
for little faith. Christ engages to be with me ; 
and shall I doubt that he is with me ? Christ 
engages to support me, and shall I doubt whether 
he will support me? Christ engages to deliver 



DIVINE CONSOLATIONS. 85 

me ; and shall I doubt that he will deliver me ? 
He bids me cast all my care on Him, for he careth 
for me. 

" And shall I still the load retain 
Which thou hast offered to sustain ? 
No, at thy bidding, I will flee, 
And cast my burdens all on thee." 

My soul, there is coming to thee an hour of 
hurried thought, of quickened memory, of eager 
expectation ; the hour that shall part the vail and 
make the Present and the Future one, and pour 
upon the Past the light of eternity. Oh, then, in 
the multitude of thy thoughts, amid all thy self- 
upbraidings, thy remembered sins, thy conscious 
weaknesses, thy rising doubts and fears, may the 
consolations of thy Saviour's word and presence 
give thee joy. 



86 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 



Itatt f Jitrrljittg* 

THE Psalmist prayed, Search me, God, and 
know my heart Did he comprehend the im- 
port of that prayer ? Do we comprehend its im- 
port when in our most pious frames we repeat the 
petition ? To come to the knowledge of oneself, 
to go down to the foundation of one's character 
and hopes, to fathom the depths of the soul, and 
in so doing to fathom as it were the depths of 
eternity, this is a more serious and earnest matter 
when God answers the prayer than we imagine 
when we utter it. It is like descending the shaft 
of a mine ; your first descent is by an easy flight 
of steps, and the novelty enlivens, and the cool- 
ness refreshes you; but at the bottom of these 
you come to a narrow archway, through which 
you must creep to the next descent, which is by a 
slender perpendicular ladder that trembles be- 



HEART SEARCHING. 87 

neath your weight; you grow dizzy and wish 
yourself safely out again; the air becomes more 
chill and damp, and you are wet and soiled with 
the drippings of the vari-colored strata through 
which you pass ; again you crawl through a yet 
narrower passage, tearing your flesh at every mo- 
tion, and now you are on the verge of a deep 
well, into which you must be lowered by crank 
and bucket. You look down into the awful un- 
broken gloom. You cast in a pebble and listen ner- 
vously for the distant plash. You ask the guide, 
" Are there ever explosions here?" His affirma- 
tive answer does not nerve your courage. You 
ask again, " Do rocks ever fall here?" Again the 
answer is in the affirmative, accompanied by the 
details of a recent accident. ll Does the rope ever 
break?" " Yes," again. Your knees smite to- 
gether as you launch into the abyss ; the bottom 
reached, you here find countless avenues with 
mystery on mystery. Now your breath is stifled ; 
now your frame is chilled ; now your flesh is 
wounded ; now your sight has gone ; again and 
again you wish yourself at the surface, yet cannot 
brave the perilous ascent. Who would have im- 
agined that under the smooth grassy mound, the 



88 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

fragrant clover, or the teeming orchard, such won- 
ders and such dangers lay concealed ? 

It is even so with the heart of man. Yet must 
we at times take the candle of Grod's word, or bet- 
ter still the guidance of God's Spirit, and fathom 
its utmost depths. Though it chill our blood and 
palsy our nerves and sicken our brain, yet must 
we go down, down into the caverns of the heart. 
What find we there ? 

Self-examination is apt to be an occasional and 
a very superficial work. "We look into ourselves 
enough to see that there is evil there, and in the 
gross we make confession of sin and purpose re- 
pentance. But we shrink from the details. To 
tell the number of our sins is an unwelcome task ; 
we avert our eyes from them, we seek to cover 
them, we hope to outgrow them, and feel assured 
at least that death will emancipate us from them 
and make us pure. This is a wretched policy. 
u He that covereth his sins shall not prosper." 
We cannot get rid of sin by any such process. It 
cannot be concealed ; it will not die out ; it can- 
not be outlived ; death will not cancel it. Where 
sin is harbored in the soul, suffered to live on 
without repentance or correction, what is there in 



HEART SEARCHING. 89 

death to destroy it ? Nay, the soul that comes to 
death with cherished sin must needs go to judg- 
ment without repentance and without pardon. 
Death works no such miraculous transformation. 
Let me not delude myself with such a thought. 
Search me, O God ! 

Sometimes God searches us by an array of 
providences that expose us to ourselves ; he holds 
up on every side a mirror, and whichever way we 
turn some phase of our own heart is reflected 
upon us. Sometimes he deals directly with the 
heart, and probes it gently but to the quick; 
sometimes he tears it open with one gaping wound, 
and as it lies quivering in its black deformity we 
must look on while conscience guided by his hand 
lays bare this evil motive, this self-interest, this 
idolatrous affection, this impure imagination, this 
envious desire, till as in the chambers of imagery 
that Ezekiel saw, we discover within us every 
abomination. Such a searching is like the attempt 
to cleanse a well whose waters have become turbid 
and foul. You draw out a few buckets, and give 
time for the pure water to flow in and settle ; you 
then draw again, but to your surprise it is still 
turbid ; you empty bucket after bucket till a del- 



90 STEAY MEDITATION'S. 

uge of slime is heaped around you ; the pure wa- 
ter is flowing in, but so foul is the well that it is 
continually discolored ; and again and again must 
you empty it before it will send up a limpid pail, 
and reflect the clear azure of the overhanging sky. 
Blessed be God if in the heart blackened by sin 
there is a deep well-spring of life, that after all 
this wearisome and loathsome emptying of self, 
will bubble up pure, and from its placid depths 
mirror forth the light of his countenance. Search 
me, God, and know my heart; try me, and know 
my thoughts ; and see if there be any wicked way in 
me, and lead me in the ivay everlasting. 



THIS "passeth all understanding' 7 It cannot 
therefore be defined ; it refuses to be held in 
the vice of our logic, or to be subjected to the 
iron pressure of our metaphysical systems. It 



THE PEACE OF GOD. 91 

comes to the soul through the avenue of the sen- 
sibility, and not through the intellect or the will. 
The knowledge of it is derived from the experi- 
ence of the heart rather than from any process of 
the understanding ; it must be felt in order to be 
known; it must come to the consciousness as a 
matter of realization before it can be apprehended 
as a matter of intellection. The soul doth not 
bring itself into this state by mere force of will, 
nor simply by meditation upon divine truth. Peace 
comes to it from God. 

There is an external peace that Christ has se- 
cured to the believer, a peace in his relations to 
God, to his law, to the judgment, and to the eter- 
nal world. He is our peace ; having slain by the 
cross the enmity subsisting between our sinful 
flesh and the violated law, he has reconciled us to 
God, and has preached peace to them that were 
afar off. But "the peace of God" is an inward 
peace, an internal tranquility of the soul. It was 
this of which the Saviour spake when in his last 
interview with his sorrowing disciples before the 
crucifixion, he said, " Peace I leave with you, my 
peace I give to you : not as the world giveth — a 
brief, fitful, superficial, uncertain, and ever limited 



92 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

composure — not as the world giveth, give I unto 
3^ou : let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be 
afraid" The peace that Jesus gives is an entire 
freedom from trouble and fear ; freedom not only 
from danger, but from the apprehension of dan- 
ger ; freedom not only from want, but from that 
solicitude which is awakened by real or imagin- 
ary need — a state of full, constant, undisturbed 
tranquility. 

This peace Christ imparts to the soul. It is his 
gift. And yet it is a gift bestowed in accordance 
with the laws of mind and with the laws of truth. 
There is in it nothing miraculous, nothing mys- 
terious, though often it comes to the soul in an un- 
looked-for moment, in the very tumult of its 
thoughts, its fears, its convictions, its griefs, and 
without any immediate assignable cause. It en- 
ters the soul and keeps it. Of a sudden there 
comes a calm — deep, rich, full — like a river filling 
up every channel, every pore, every the minutest 
ramification of the tranquilized and delighted 
sensibility. At what point this river found en- 
trance to your soul you know not — this passeth 
comprehension ; on every side it floweth in, and 
still it floweth on, and with every tumult hushed 



THE PEACE OF GOD. 93 

with every apprehension gone, you sit a wonder 
to -yourself, in the calm, full blessedness of the 
peace of God. In the chamber of your bitter 
agony, where you groaned with the burden of 
guilt and the anguish of despair, in the solitude 
and darkness that but now were filled with shapes 
and sounds of terror, in the chamber of your deep- 
est grief, by the bed of death, by the cold and si- 
lent form you loved, by the yet open coffin, in the 
somber presence of funereal scenes, you sit serene 
— the very God of peace abiding in you. 

This peace is not the mere subsidence of animal 
excitement in the interval of the paroxysms of 
grief. You have the same consciousness of sorrow 
as before ; the pressure of calamity is upon you, 
and grows heavier with each dragging hour. 
You have not fallen into insensibility or into men- 
tal inaction Your perception of your sinfulness 
is as vivid as ever ; your sense of your loss is as 
keen as when first your soul was laid open by the 
piercing sword ; your emotions are not exhausted, 
your tears are not dried ; should you at any mo- 
ment give loose to your feelings they would hurry 
you away as before ; but you do not give loose to 
them, and this not because your will restrains 



94 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

them — for here the will is impotent — not because 
you have reasoned yourself into a calmer frame, 
not because philosophy or pride has come to your 
aid and is bolstering you up with false props, not 
because you have formed resolutions and plans 
for the future and by force of imagination have 
thrown yourself out of present scenes, till Hope 
has distanced Memory ; you have no wish to flee 
from sorrow, and know that henceforth it must 
abide with you ; but while every grief is present, 
it is present with an altered mien or with its at- 
tendant solace, and it comes to you sadly but with 
calm and gentle footsteps; while every sin is 
present, it is present not as an accuser but as a 
sorrowing monitor, and Penitence and Pardon 
come hand in hand with each remembered trans- 
gression ; your peace though not consciously de- 
rived from God or from meditation upon any spe- 
cific attribute of his character or truth of his word, 
is ever associated with his character and his word, 
and these are continually recurring to your 
thoughts. And thus you come to recognize it as 
a true, divine peace. It is not the induration of 
the heart under prolonged conviction or excited 
grief, it is not the uprising of the will to reassert 



THE PEACE OF GOD. 95 

; , • 

its pride of dominion, it is not the stern bracing 
of a stoical or a necessitarian philosophy, it is not 
the diversion of thought and emotion into other 
channels, nor is it an ecstatic and visionary frame 
into which the mind has come through very 
weakness and excitement ; it is a state of mind 
in which every cause of grief or of mental agita- 
tion is yet consciously present, but is hushed 
down by calm and holy thoughts, by serene and 
majestic shapes of truth and love, that as from an 
invisible source have entered the soul and there 
abide. 

In such a state Conscience is at peace, because 
the will and the affections have come into har- 
mony with its demands ; the Will is at rest in 
the accepted will of God ; and even Imagination 
ever fretting the soul with fictitious hopes or ex- 
aggerated fears, is now quiescent at the feet of 
infinite Knowledge and infinite Love. God is in 
the soul. The peace of God which passeth all un- 
derstanding keeps the heart and mind through 
Christ Jesus. 

But though this peace thus comes to the soul 
often without any immediate and perceived con- 
nection with divine truth, it were the height of 



96 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

enthusiasm to suppose it a matter either of pure 
spontaneity or of miraculous creation. It is con- 
sequent upon a certain attitiide of mind toward 
God, though the point, or the medium, or the in- 
stant of its communication may be determined by 
the special* influence of the Holy Spirit. It is 
connected as a promise, with two injunctions. Be 
careful for nothing. Confide in God. By the study 
of his word, his providence, and his grace, learn 
to trust in Him, and so repress all undue solici- 
tude about any of your concerns. " Be careful for 
nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplica- 
tion, icith thanksgiving, let your requests be made 
known to God." Pray to God habitually, uni- 
formly, in each event and concernment of life. 
Carry every thing to God. Thus trusting and 
thus praying, the pjeace of God, which passeth all 
understanding, shall keep your heart and mind through 
Christ Jesus. 



A DAY WITH CHRIST. 97 



51 SJdij mitjj (Cjjrist. 

IT may enable one tlie better to realize what it 
is to live with Christ, to conceive of him as 
being present bodily as he was with the first dis- 
ciples. Suppose then that Christ is at your side, 
just as he was daily with Peter or John, are you 
quite willing to have Him observe all your con- 
duct, to know how you are occupied, what you 
say and do through all the day? He is not 
present as an austere censor, but as a personal 
friend, kind, patient, forbearing ; yet He is pure 
and holy, and is grieved and offended at any de- 
parture from the perfect law of rectitude and love. 
And now with Christ thus at your side, you are 
supposed to act naturally in all respects as you are 
accustomed to do, assuming nothing for the occa- 
sion. How far are you prepared to submit to the 
personal inspection of Christ? 



98 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

He enters the family. He rejoices in the genial 
play of affection, and in the innocent mirth of 
the fire-side. The little prattler on your knee en- 
gages his attention and receives his caresses. He 
is a cheerful, affectionate, considerate visitor, en- 
tering with interest into every subject relating to 
your happiness. But what impression does the 
general, the usual course of affairs in the family 
produce upon the mind of such an observer? 
How much place is given to religion ? Is God 
honored in your house ? Is your family worship 
so conducted — I speak it reverently — that Christ 
himself could join in it, or could at least be an 
approving spectator ? How much of the conver- 
sation of the family is upon topics agreeable to 
Christ ? And to what extent is your conversa- 
tion upon domestic affairs and secular things char- 
acterized by a tone of natural and cheerful piety 
— the recognition of God's providence, of moral 
obligation, and of the superior importance of 
spiritual things ? 

In the whole economy of the household, in the 
intercourse of the several members of the family 
with each other, how much is there of the spirit 
of kindness, subduing irascibility and fretfulness, 



A BAY WITH CHRIST. 99 

and causing the day to glide smoothly and pleas- 
antly onward ? How far are your expenses, your 
style of living, the education of your children, in 
a word, all your domestic arrangements, regulated 
so as to meet the approbation of Christ ? Endeavor 
thus to entertain Christ in your family for a day, 
and you may discover whether you do truly live 
with Him. 

From the family, Christ now accompanies you 
to your place of business. He observes your de- 
portment in your intercourse with the world. He 
is with you in the counting-room, He is with you 
in the shop, He is with you on 'Change ; wher- 
ever you go Christ is at your side ; whatever you 
say or do Christ is a witness of it. He sees with 
what temper you bear the disappointments and 
vexations of the day ; He sees upon what prin- 
ciples you conduct your business, and for what 
end; whether you are in haste to be rich, or 
whether, while "not slothful in business," you are 
still "fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." Christ 
stands by you when you are making a bargain, 
knows whether you speak the truth, or take ad- 
vantage of your neighbor. If you act just as 
you are accustomed to do, how much will Christ 



100 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

see in you to approve, and that will cause Him 
to rejoice in such a representative; or how much 
that will cause Him to blush for the honor of His 
name? 

From your family and your place of business, 
Christ next goes with you into society. Perhaps 
the company to which you introduce Him is a 
circle of relatives, or of Christian friends, who 
have met for social entertainment. Such a com- 
pany ought to be congenial to his tastes and feel- 
ings. Does it prove to be so ? Is your deport- 
ment and that of your fellow-Christians in a social 
party, — are your topics of conversation and meth- 
ods of amusement such that Christ will feel quite 
at home there, and, as a cheerful friend, can par- 
ticipate therein ? 

But perhaps the company to which you intro- 
duce Him is of a different character, — a gay 
worldly party. As He enters the brilliant assem- 
bly, is not Christ struck with the incongruity of 
your going to such a place in quest of enjoyment ? 
And as the entertainment of the evening pro- 
ceeds, the giddy dance begins, the games are in- 
troduced, the wine circulates freely, and the flip- 
pant conversation grows more noisy as night 



A DAY WITH CHRIST. 101 

wears away, does not He wonder more and more 
that any disciple of his should take pleasure in 
such scenes, and court their deleterious excite- 
ment ? 

Possibly Christ is gratified at seeing how that 
young disciple, whose relations to society have 
casually brought her into such a position, main- 
tains her consistency, and demeans herself as a 
Christian, in the presence of the gay and giddy 
world. But when you are again invited to such 
a party be sure that you ask Christ to go with you, 
and that you keep Him at your side. 

Leaving these scenes, Christ next attends you 
to your closet He observes whether you resort 
thither cheerfully, or by constraint of conscience 
and of habit ; whether you enter it in a hurry, 
and after a hurried prayer and a listless mechani- 
cal reading of the Scriptures, rush forth again to 
the world of business or of pleasure, where your 
heart has mainly been ; or whether your closet is 
a favorite resort, which you delight to seek, and 
where you love to linger, that you may hold near 
and intimate converse with Him. Are you wil- 
ling that Christ should thus enter your closet with 
you? 



102 STEAY MEDITATIONS. 

He attends you also to tlie prayer-meeting and 
to the house of God, He knows what passes in 
your mind before going, — whether you go cheer- 
fully or of constraint, after a long conflict between 
duty and inclination. He knows what prepara- 
tion you make for these social and public relig- 
ious services, and in what spirit — for He reads 
the heart — you engage in them. Would you be 
willing to perform these duties as you are accus- 
tomed to do, with Christ at your side as a close 
observer ? 

And in the same manner Christ takes notice of 
what you do for His cause. He knows whether 
you visit the poor, converse with the impenitent, 
seek out the vicious and degraded, and in what 
spirit you perform such labors. If you are a Sab- 
bath-school teacher, He sits by your side and ob- 
serves whether you hear your class mechanically, 
or whether with kindness and patience you adapt 
your instructions to them personally, and are in- 
tent upon their salvation. Christ is at your side, 
too, when an appeal is made to you for a charit- 
able object, and He sees how you regard it, or He 
sees how much you put into the contribution-box 
when such an appeal is made in public. Are you 



A PORCELAIN CHRIST. 103 

quite willing that Christ should see and know, as 
a personal observer, just what you are doing for 
his cause ? 

If you will endeavor thus to conceive of Christ 
as with you in the body, for a single day, you may 
judge how far you truly live with Him. 



2 porrrlaitt (Christ imfr iljc Imxi (Cjirist 

FEW Christians have attained to that intimate 
and complete union with Christ of which he 
spoke in the last interview with his disciples be- 
fore his crucifixion. " Abide in me, and I in you" 
It is not merely trusting in Christ, or walking 
with Christ ; it is living in him, and having his 
presence ever in the soul. As two friends, though 
separated, live in each other's thoughts and affec- 



104 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

tions, and possess one spirit, seek each other's hap- 
piness, rejoice in each other, and often without 
consultation come, as it were instinctively, to the 
same opinion, and adopt the same course of life, 
so Christ and the true believer are one. 

Paul, in one of those sententious sayings which 
contain an epitome of the Gospel, declares that 
the grand revelation of the New Testament is 
" Christ in you the hope of glory J 1 Oh ! the pre- 
ciousness of such a union with Christ ! of such a 
real presence of the Saviour in the soul! And yet 
it is to be feared that many of his followers 
know but little of it. Some have merely a historic 
Christ. They receive the facts recorded of his 
life and death as the ground of confidence in him 
as the Saviour of the world. They believe in that 
Christ who appeared in Judea eighteen centuries 
ago, and rest their hopes of salvation upon his 
finished work. But Christ, like any character in 
history, is with them only an object of outward 
contemplation. 

Others have a dogmatic Christ: the Christ of 
the catechism and the schools. They believe in 
the atonement, in the doctrine of justification by 
faith alone, in the mediation of Jesus as their 



A PORCELAIN" CHRIST. 105 

great High Priest; in a word, in all those doc- 
trines called Orthodox. They are sound in the 
faith, and zealous for the honor of the Gospel; 
and yet Christ is too much in their creed, and too 
little in their hearts. 

What we need in order to know the full power 
of Christ — the power of his life, the power of his 
doctrine, the power of his death, the power of his 
resurrection — is, to have Christ in us as r the one 
object of thought, of affection, of desire, of hope, 
of joy — to be in sympathy with his feelings and 
his work — to be swayed by his Spirit. 

I know not how better to illustrate this 
general idea, than by the following incident. A 
German woman, a Catholic, now residing in New 
York, on leaving her native land, had received 
from her priest a charm, which was to preserve 
her amid the perils of the voyage, and to protect 
her in a land of strangers. Such a charm is gen- 
erally procured by German Catholic emigrants 
before coming to America. Sometimes it con- 
sists of a small crucifix ; sometimes of a mere pic- 
ture of the Saviour on the cross, enveloped in a 
leather case ; sometimes of an image of the Virgin. 
In this case it was a crucifix of porcelain. Its pos- 



106 ST KAY MEDITATIONS. 

sessor haying reached New York in safety, and 
thus proved the virtue of her crucifix, kept it sus- 
pended upon the wall of her chamber, as an aid 
to devotion, if not itself an object of grateful ado- 
ration. But one day, as she was adjusting the 
furniture of the room, a sudden jar brought down 
the crucifix to "the floor, and broke her Saviour 
into a hundred fragments. Alas ! what could she 
now do ? She had lost her Christ — her friend, her 
protector. For a time she gave herself up to 
weeping and self-reproach. But presently, in her 
grief, she sought counsel of a neighbor in an ad- 
joining apartment. " What shall I do?" she cried, 
"for my dear Christ is broken to pieces I" 

It happened that this neighbor was one of the 
congregation of German seceders from the Eoman 
Catholic Church : one who had embraced the doc- 
trines of evangelical religion, and who had expe- 
rienced the grace of Christ in her own soul. She 
said to her distressed friend, "Do not grieve, and 
I will tell you how you may make up your loss. 
I keep the Saviour always in my heart" She then 
explained to her the Scriptures, and invited her to 
go and hear the preacher of the new congregation 
on the next Sabbath. The invitation was accepted : 



CHRIST INDWELLING. 107 

the eyes of the poor, disconsolate woman were 
opened, and she, too, found a Christ whom she can 
keep always in her heart, and of whom no casualty 
nor violence can ever deprive her. 

Our faith in the historic evidences of Christianity 
may be shaken, at times, by those doubts and fears 
to which all Christians are exposed; our creeds 
may be assailed or undermined ; our ecclesiastical 
systems may be exploded into fragments, but noth- 
ing shall ever deprive us of Christ, if he be in 
us the hope of glory. 



(Cjjrist Sttfrmrlling* 

THE great thought upon which the Saviour 
dwelt in his last interview with his disciples 
before the crucifixion, was that after his bodily 
presence should have been withdrawn, he would 
really be with them more intimately than before. 



108 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

For three years lie had been with them, thence- 
forth he would be in them. " Yet a little while 
and the world seeth me no more ; but ye see me ; 
because I live, ye shall live also." He promised 
them a complete identity with himself in interests 
and in blessedness ; nay more than this — a certain 
life-union that should constitute them one with 
Christ. " At that day ye shall know that I am in 
my Father, and ye in me and 2" in you" He 
spake also of a peculiar manifestation of himself 
to his disciples, such as the world could not wit- 
ness; and when one of them desired to know how 
this divine manifestation should be, and how they 
should be conscious of it, " Jesus answered and 
said to him, If a man love me, he will keep my 
word ; and my Father will love him, and we will 
come to him and make our abode with him" 

Often as we have pondered these words they 
have seemed to veil an impenetrable mystery ; and 
this because the mind was intent upon compre- 
hending the manner of ^this indwelling, rather 
than upon taking cognizance of the fact itself 
through its palpable evidences. But in truth it is 
with this indwelling of Christ in the soul, as with 
the peace of God; it is a fact of personal experi- 



CHRIST INDWELLING. 109 

ence that cannot be analyzed and reduced to a 
metaphysical proposition. It were easy indeed to 
set it forth both negatively and positively; to, 
show that Christ does not dwell in the believer 
in his essential nature or by any visible manifesta- 
tion ; and that he does dwell in the thoughts, the 
affections, the desires, and the purposes of the soul, 
through his perceived character and relations, his 
adopted principles and spirit, and his ever-living 
truth. But this after all is a dry skeleton of the 
intellect, or if it be clothed with flesh and beauti- 
fied, that is a work of the imagination which van- 
ishes again into airy nothing when the heart in 
loneliness and sorrow would clasp a present Sa- 
viour. The living Saviour will not be thus dis- 
sected and analyzed by the speculative reason, and 
taken piecemeal into the heart ; if he enters the 
heart at all he comes to it in his own way, and the 
heart knows that he is there. 

Christ gave to the inquiring Judas no explana- 
tion of the mode of that divine manifestation 
which he had promised. He did not say, -"You 
will meditate upon my character, my person, my 
teachings, my relations to you, and my Spirit will 
so quicken your perceptions of truth and so enli- 

6 



110 STKAY MEDITATIONS. 

ven your affections that you shall see me and feel 



my presence as if I were with you in the body." 
But what said he ? " Judas (not Iscariot) saith to 
him, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself 
to us, and not to the world ? Jesus answered and 
said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my 
words ; and my Father will love him, and we will 
come to him, and make our abode with him" But 
this answer does not tell how Christ will manifest 
himself; it declares what are the conditions and 
what the evidences of that manifestation, but as a 
psychological phenomenon or as a problem in men- 
tal philosophy, the answer renders it not one whit 
plainer than the original declaration. Indeed 
in this respect the answer is even more mysterious 
than the first announcement. Christ comes to the 
soul — no doubt in connection with his truth and 
the exercise of faith upon that truth — but never- 
theless he comes to the awakened consciousness 
with a realization of his presence that words can- 
not define, and he abides in the soul, diffusing 
spiritual light, and life, and comfort, and joy, as 
from a self-luminous globe whose interior consti- 
tution cannot be analyzed, and whose brilliant 
effluence eludes our nicest tests. 



CHRIST INDWELLING. Ill 

That this indwelling of Christ in the soul is a 
reality is plain from the experience of John, whose 
first epistle is a continuous reflection of it. " Truly 
our fellowship is with the Father and with his son 
Jesus Christ." John walked in that holy fellow- 
ship. As we read Neander, especially when he 
acts as the interpreter of John or of Christ's last 
sayings, it is evident that he has experimentally 
apprehended the indwelling of Christ. This he 
does not explain, or if he attempts to explain it 
he is caught in the subtleties of German meta- 
physics, but it beams upon us from his innermost 
consciousness ; we know that Christ dwelleth in 
him because Christ shines evermore through his 
genial, childlike, affectionate piety. 

No doubt Christ dwells in the soul by his char- 
acter, his doctrines, his precepts, his example, his 
spirit, his promises, his relations, as these are dwelt 
upon in meditative faith. But is the renot above 
all this a sympathetic union, a heart-life, a subtle 
acting of his mind upon ours, that comes not in 
the first instance through the critical reason, but 
through the pliant and gladdened sensibility? 
Our limited human experiences here furnish us 
with some faint analogy. You love to devotion 



112 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

the chosen partner of your life. The charms of per- 
son, of mind, and of heart, the hallowed sympathy, 
the dear companionship of years, have made the 
one being with whom you dwell the all in all of 
earth. Where every counsel, every care, every 
joy, every thought has been shared, you can con- 
ceive of no higher fellowship. But you do not 
yet understand the capacities of your own nature. 
This fellowship, so intimate and so complete, is 
yet a fellowship connected with and manifested by 
external media — a dwelling with, rather than an 
indwelling. Let now this partner of your life be for 
weeks, and months, and years, an invalid, feeble, de- 
pendent, wasting before your eyes with slow dis- 
ease ; let every generous and tender sympathy of 
your being be enlisted for the relief of suffering, 
and every plan and arrangement of life be shaped 
for that end ; let each day bring its alternations of 
hope and of fear, of comfort and of distress ; let 
your eye with the quick glance of affection mark 
every change, note every symptom, catch every 
expression, read every thought and wish, and you 
have become absorbed in this dear object with a 
oneness of feeling to which you were before a 
stranger. On the busy street, in the shop, the 



CHRIST INDWELLING. 113 

counting-room, the study, in the public assembly, 
in the silent watches of the night, this one object 
is ever present not to thought only, but to every 
susceptibility of the soul, while through all the 
changeful phases of that jDresence your emotions 
follow as the tides obey the moon. So too does 
that loved one live in you, read your thoughts, 
and drink in your spirit ; and thus through the 
quick and subtle sensibility, or through some new 
channel of your being that emotion has forced 
open, do two souls, hitherto linked together by 
every outward and visible tie, flow gently into one, 
and know a union that death itself cannot dissever. 
Even so does Christ come and abide in the soul 
that, penitent and trustful, looks to him ; even so 
does he bear its griefs and carry its sorrows ; even 
so does he nerve it with his strength and fill it 
with his joy, until that soul comes to live in him 
as its own indissoluble life. Yes, far transcending 
all sympathetic union of human spirits, is that 
deep, sacred, all-pervading union of sympathy 
and affection into which Christ the Creator and 
the Eedeemer of the soul, enters with that soul 
when he comes to manifest himself to it and to 
abide with it. 



114 STKAY MEDITATIONS. 

But how shall we know that Christ is really 
present with us — that it is Christ whom we see 
and not a creation of our own excited imagination ? 
On that point there is no need of mistake. Though 
we cannot know how Christ enters the soul we 
may always know when he is really there ; and 
the evidences of his presence should engage our 
thoughts more than the manner of it. The Apos- 
tle John gives us these evidences in such terms 
as these: "He that keepeth his commandments, 
dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we 
know that he abideth in us by the spirit which he 
hath given us. If we love one another, God 
dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. 
Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in 
us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. He 
that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and 
God in him." The spirit of obedience and the 
spirit of love secure to us the indwelling of 
Christ. Especially is it through the spirit of love 
that Christ enters the soul, and by that spirit that 
he manifests his presence. He that dwelleth in 
love, whose whole spirit and life, whose every 
thought and purpose is under the direction of love 
to God and man — is the out- going of that love — 



A GOOD FOUNDATION. 115 

will know assuredly that Christ and the Father 
have come to him and have taken up their abode 
with him. 



IN a fierce tempest that swept over New York in 
midsummer, the walls of a church then erect- 
ting were shaken and in part thrown to the 
ground. On inquiring into the cause of the dis- 
aster I learned that though the materials were 
good, and the workmanship thorough, it proved 
that the soil in which the foundations were laid 
was a quicksand which had shifted under the 
weight of the building, and had left it at the mercy 
of the winds. The wall was taken down to the 
foundation ; piles were then driven thickly 



116 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

together till they formed a solid basis ; then 
heavy timber was laid on the top of these ; next 
a firm and consistent soil was heaped upon the 
whole, and then the masonry was relaid, and the 
wall built up again in massive strength. 

As with that foundation so is it with many of 
the grounds of earthly hope, and comfort, and joy. 
Man builds upon friendship, upon wealth, upon 
public opinion or reputation, and rears on these 
his lofty hopes and schemes ; but when he is 
shaken by some mighty wind these foundations 
often prove to be only quicksands; they slide 
from under him, and all that he had built upon 
them comes toppling down. What then ? Though 
the crash seems dreadful, all is not lost. He can 
build again, and if he is wise he will look well 
to his foundation, and he will go below all human 
props and aids, that he may plant himself firmly 
in God. He will not begin to build upward till 
he has sounded the treacherous depths around him, 
and has struck the rock, and bolted himself to 
that. Yes, though the discipline be severe, and 
to a sensitive spirit almost insupportable, it is well 
for one who is aiming to do right, to be forsaken 
by friends, and maligned and buffeted by enemies, 



A GOOD FOUNDATION. 117 

to be cast out as vile, and blown upon by fierce 
winds of human passion, that he may learn what 
strength and comfort are in God. There are 
depths of the heart and depths of religious expe- 
rience which we can learn only by such a trial, 
and to learn which is worth years of patient suf- 
fering. A blessed result of such a trial is that it 
leads one to fix himself absolutely upon God # 
Why should we shrink from trials that come to us 
in the way of duty or as a heaven-sent discipline ? 
We are in the hands of ONE who, while he 
shakes the mountains with his tempests, doth also 
temper the wind to the shorn lamb. In this ever 
shifting world, amid its varying and often boister- 
ous currents, one needs a sure anchorage, and 
this he finds when he is driven to put his trust 
alone in God. 



118 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 



ft t nihil fn Christ, 

CHRIST is a foundation — the foundation of our 
hope, of our peace, of our salvation; the 
foundation of all true worship, of all true access 
to God ; the foundation of that spiritual temple 
which Jehovah is rearing to himself amid the ru- 
ins of the fall. He is the only foundation ; the 
foundation that the Lord himself has laid for the 
hopes of a perishing world. He is the corner- 
stone — the support and the connection of the whole 
building — the chief corner-stone, chosen, tried, 
precious, sure, adjusted by infinite wisdom and 
infinite power to its position of honor, of strength, 
and of beauty, in the stupendous work of man's 
redemption. 

Am I built on this foundation ? Men may dis- 
allow it, but God has chosen it, and it shall stand. 
Have I then chosen it as my foundation ? Do I 



RIVETED TO CHRIST. 119 

rest upon it as my confidence and support ? Am 
I cemented to this foundation, riveted to it, so 
that all my interests are consolidated with the in- 
terests of Christ ? " Think it not enough," says 
the excellent Leighton, " think it not enough that 
you know this stone is laid, but see whether you are 
built on it by faith. The multitude of imaginary 
believers lie round about it, but they are never 
the better nor the surer for that, any more than 
stones that lie loose in heaps near unto a founda- 
tion, but are not joined to it. ; There is no benefit 
to us by Christ, without union with him ; no com- 
fort in his riches, without an interest in them, and 
a title to them, by virtue of that union. This 
union is the spring of all spiritual consolations. 
And faith, by which we are thus united, is a Di- 
vine work. He that laid this foundation in Sion 
with his own hand, works likewise, with the same 
hand, faith in the heart, by which it is knit to this 
corner-stone." Yes, faith is the cement that unites 
the soul to this sure foundation — the ethereal link 
that binds it evermore to Christ. " To whom com- 
ing as to a living stone, ye also, as lively 

stones, are built up a spiritual house." 

Have I this faith ? " To you who believe, he 



120 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 



is precious " — an object of honor and esteem. Is 
Christ precious to me? Is he not only an object 
of fitful admiration and affection — as when his 
attractions are portrayed in eloquent discourse — 
but is he precious, my only honor, my ever chief 
delight ? Then am I built on him by faith ; then 
may I claim that blessed promise, a he that be- 
lieveth on him shall not be confounded — shall not 
make haste." Then all my interests are safe ; then 
/ am safe — forever safe. 

In the far South there is a river which, ordi- 
narily still and shallow, in the spring time is 
swollen by heavy rains or melted snow from the 
mountains, and whose sudden freshets devastate 
the whole country through which it flows. I have 
heard that one who wished to avail himself of 
this stream for manufacturing purposes, selected 
a site for his building where the foundation was 
of living rock ; this rock was drilled at various 
points to the depth of several inches, huge stones 
selected and shaped with care were then laid upon 
it in cement, each stone being furnished also with 
iron bolts that fitted into the sockets prepared in 
the foundation and were there soldered by fused 
metal ; thus was each stone bolted to its fellow, 



RIVETED TO CHRIST. 121 

and the whole to the foundation. The neighbors 
laughed at such pains-taking and expense, and in 
their improvident way thought it better to take 
the risk of a freshet. To what purpose was a pyra- 
mid of granite built beside a shallow summer rill ? 
The next spring there came a freshet of unprece- 
dented suddenness and force. Wide the torrent 
overflowed its banks, sweeping down plantations, 
fences, trees, huts, houses, with appalling devasta- 
tion. The occupants fled in dismay ; confounded 
at the sudden ruin, they made haste to escape for 
their lives. Meanwhile, the workmen of this fac- 
tory pursued their customary labors within its 
walls ; from the windows they saw the roaring 
flood, the crashing trees and buildings, the torrent 
of destruction rolling by ; yet they felt no alarm, 
they were not confounded with surprise, they were 
not agitated by one anxious thought, they did. not 
make haste to secure their safety by flight ; they 
knew that they were safe — nowhere could they be 
safer than there, founded on the rock, bolted to 
the rock. Thus it is with the soul that is built on 
Christ. Secure in him it cannot know a fear. No 
danger can surprise it, no agitation or alarm can 
disturb its peace. It shall not make haste, it shall 



122 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

not ask Whither shall I flee ? — for only where it 
is, can it be safe, " They that are disappointed 
and ashamed in their hopes, run to and fro, and 
seek after some new resource. The believing soul 
makes haste to Christ, but it never finds cause 
to hasten from him .... Such times may come 
as will shake all other supports, but this holds 
out against all — though the earth he removed, yet will 
not we fear. Though the frame of the world were 
cracking about a man's ears, he may hear it unaf- 
frighted who is built on this foundation. And in 
that great day wherein all faces shall gather black- 
ness and be filled with confusion, that have ne- 
glected to make Christ their stay when he was 
offered them, then it shall appear how happy they 
are who have trusted in him ; They shall not be 
confounded, but shall lift up their faces , and be acquit- 
ted in him? 

Come then my soul, and join thyself to Christ 
alone. Build upon this sure foundation, and rivet 
thyself and thine immortal destiny to Christ, by 
every tie of gratitude and affection, with every 
fiber of thy being. Be not content to have be- 
lieved in Him, to have built upon Him thy hope, 
but daily by new bonds rivet thyself to this living 



RIVETED TO CHRIST. 123 

and eternal rock. In thy morning meditations, 
let some new aspect of Christ, some new applica- 
tion of Christ, some new adaptation of his words 
and his life to thy condition and thy wants, be as 
a burning bolt of love to bind thee unto Him, 
and let the glow of devotion at eventide, the 
grateful remembrance of what Christ hath been to 
thee this day, weld and clinch that bolt forever. 

Oh let me be established on the rock ! Then 
shall I be firm in every trial, in every conflict, in 
every temptation ; then when the cold, dark waters 
of death shall rise about me, I shall not be con- 
founded; though they gurgle in my ears and chill 
the life-blood in my heart, yet I shall touch bot- 
tom all the way, shall feel the rock beneath my 
feet, and shall emerge upon the crystal pavement 
on the other side. 



124 STKAY MEDITATIONS, 



JInt Inliiitrtf, 

ii T WILL not leave you orphans" said Jesus as 
JL lie was about to depart from his disciples, An 
orphan has no natural protector ; no proper guide ; 
no father upon whose counsels he can lean, upon 
whose aid he can rely ; no mother to whose ever- 
ready sympathy he can resort, and in whose love 
he can nestle secure from every childish fear. He 
is alone and desolate. He grows up without nur- 
ture ; like a plant by the way-side exposed to be 
plucked or trodden down by every passer-by, or 
like the wild shrub of the heather, subject to every 
storm, without shelter by day or by night, from 
sun, or wind, or cold, or tempest, or the careless 
tramp of hunter or of ravenous beast. The or- 
phan may have a guardian ; but often does the 
guardian content himself with fulfilling his legal 
duties to his ward, while his intellectual develop- 



NOT SOLITARY. 125 

ment, and his social and moral culture are quite 
overlooked. Too often the commission for his 
own services is with the guardian a leading con- 
sideration in all his care of his ward's person and es- 
tate. Sometimes, indeed, the orphan finds a home 
in the bosom of a family allied to his own by con- 
sanguinity or by the tried friendship of years, and 
there he may forget his lone and comfortless con- 
dition in the light and warmth and tenderness of 
a disinterested and a permanent affection. Yet even 
such a family, with all its genial influences, with 
its affectionate, its refining, its sanctifying culture, 
cannot be to him in all things as the home of 
earlier years, before death had thrown its shadow 
over the dignity and grace, the gentleness and 
saintly purity that presided there. 

The most anxious wish of the dying parent is 
to provide, in the plighted faith or the known affec- 
tion of another, some security for the proper nur- 
ture of the children now to be deprived of their nat- 
ural guardian. The Christian is enabled in faith 
to commend his orphans to God ; but the utmost 
confidence of faith does not argue an indifference 
to such temporal provision for their welfare as a 
prudent forethought may suggest. Yet with all 



126 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

that both faith, and forethought can do for its re- 
lief, the condition of the orphan is still most deso- 
late. " I will not leave you orphans," said Jesus 
to his sorrowing disciples, "I will not leave you 
orphans ; I will come to you again." 

The affectionateness of Christ in his closing in- 
terview with his disciples is one of the most re- 
markable features of that memorable scene. The 
humanity of Jesus was as conspicuous in the ex- 
pression of sympathy as was his divinity in the 
assurance of his omnipresent indwelling. Jesus 
was truly a man — a perfect man — a man in whose 
soul every sensibility and every affection was 
most exquisitely tuned, and who could reciprocate 
the endearments of friendship with more than the 
love of woman, with a strength, a purity, and a 
delicacy of affection known only to souls that are 
free from sin. The little circle of disciples con- 
stituted his family ; upon these he bestowed an 
affection kindred to that of the nearest relations 
of life. On one occasion he stretched forth his 
hand toward his disciples and said, " Behold my 
mother and my brethren ! For whosoever shall 
do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the 
same is my brother, and sister, and mother." These 



NOT SOLITARY. 127 

disciples were for three years bis intimate compan- 
ions. They had forsaken all for him, and had 
shared his cares and sorrows and toils. He loved 
them ; loved them not only with the divine com- 
passion that had brought him into the world to 
save them from their sins ; loved them not only 
as a Kedeemer, ready to offer himself as a sacrifice 
for their salvation; but loved them as a friend 
with a personal attachment. Indeed, there were 
those among them for whom he had a peculiar 
regard ; — thus he selected Peter and James and 
John to witness any special manifestations of his 
glory, and John was called habitually " the disci- 
ple whom Jesus loved." The thought of parting 
from these cherished friends was painful. He had 
borne with their weaknesses, their ignorance, and 
their folly, — he could even bear their desertion, — 
for he loved them with the most deep and tender 
affection. And now in this closing hour, forget- 
ful of himself, he expressed that affection in the 
most pathetic terms. His concern was not that he 
was about to suffer and to die, but that they were 
about to be left alone as lambs in the midst of 
wolves. He prayed for them, he counseled them, 
he gave them his sympathy. " Little children," 



128 STEAY MEDITATIONS. 

said lie, — before this be bad called tbem his disci- 
ples or his friends — but now he says to them, " Lit- 
tle children, yet a little while I am with yon." 
Some of them perhaps had nnmbered more years 
on earth than Christ himself, bnt as an expression 
of tenderness and affection he calls them little chil- 
dren; and in the same tender association adds, "I 
will not leave you orphans." 

The provision made for these immediate and 
personal disciples is extended also to all who have 
believed upon his name. " I will not leave you 
solitary ; I will come to you." Blessed promise 
— a provision made by Christ himself for the pro- 
tection, the guidance, and the support of his dis- 
ciples. I will not leave you solitary. 



THE PROMISED COMING. 129 



®Jji ^rnmisti (Cnming. 

ii T AYILL not leave you solitary; I will come 
JL to you." Ah, tliis is more than earthly friends 
can promise at parting. These can commend us 
to God ; they can leave us with composure in the 
hands of an all-wise and an almighty Father ; and 
they can console us with the fond hope of meet- 
ing them again; — but the dying parent cannot 
say to his children, as if he were going on a jour- 
ney, " I will come to you again ; in a little while 
ye shall see me." How would such an assurance, 
could it be realized, mitigate the anguish of separ- 
ation, and make the parting at death nothing more 
than the parting for a journey at the railway sta- 
tion or on the deck of a steamer. But no such 
assurance can friends send back to us from the 
world of departed spirits. Sometimes on the con- 
fines of that world, a fervid imagination or a quick- 



130 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

ened faith, will seize the hope of an angelic minis- 
try to those whom it has loved on earth. " May 
I not know you? May I not visit you?" it in- 
quires earnestly, hopefully, but it cannot say — I will 
come to you. 

A venerable minister of Christ, who has expe- 
rienced the sorest of earthly bereavements, writes 
to me : — "I never enter the pulpit but a saying of 
my dear partner, just as life was fast ebbing, comes 
into my mind. ' Weep not for me — who can tell 
but that, when you are preaching the unsearch- 
able riches of Christ, I may be permitted to be 
near you to joy over you — weep not for me. 7 
There may be selfishness in it," he adds, " there 
may be too much, of human weakness — but I feel 
as if the thought nerved me up to proclaim the 
fullness of that salvation which. I then saw so 
touchingly displayed." 

But what in such, a case is mere conjecture — for 
though the heart delights to cherish, such a thought, 
it is conjecture only — what is a mere conjecture, 
a wish, a hope respecting a departed friend, is re- 
ality, is knowledge respecting Christ. " Weep not 
for me," said Jesus to his sorrowing disciples, 
" weep not for me, though you shall see me snatched 



THE PROMISED COMING. 131 

from among the living and suspended on the cross 
— though ye shall see me dead and laid in the 
tomb. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let 
it be afraid. Though I shall go out of the world 
and be removed from the sight of men, I shall 
not depart from you. I will not leave you solita- 
ry; I will come to you. In a little while the 
world shall no longer see me, but ye still shall see 
me. I know that I am with you." 

It is given to the believer to realize in his own 
heart the presence of Christ through the Spirit. 
How this is we may not attempt to define ; it is 
a matter of experience to the renewed and sancti- 
fied heart, — but the heart unrenewed, the heart 
never gladdened by this consciousness, can no 
more comprehend what it is than a blind man can 
comprehend the beauty of color to an eye that 
sees. 

Some would restrict the coming, or the mani- 
festation of Christ here spoken of, to the brief in- 
terval during which he appeared to his disciples 
after his resurrection. But could an occasional 
appearance for a few days, to be followed by a 
life-long separation, fulfill the promise, " I will not 
leave you desolate" — a promise which assures 



132 STKAY MEDITATIONS. 

them of an eternal fellowship with, himself? More- 
over, there is an assurance that they shall live be- 
cause he lives ; but this cannot refer of course to 
the preservation of mere natural life, nor can it 
mean that the general resurrection was just at 
hand. It must therefore refer "not to the phys- 
ical sight of the corporeal resurrection, but to 
the spiritual perception of Christ in the mind." The 
coming of Christ is "an inward presence in the 
mind," realized through the Holy Spirit. The 
Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the 
Father will send in my name, he shall teach you 
all things and bring all things to your remem- 
brance, whatsoever I have said to you." To the 
soul quickened by divine truth, brought by the 
movings of the Holy Spirit into a sympathetic 
union with Christ, the presence of Christ becomes 
a reality; his words live, his spirit lives in and 
through that mind ; his love pervades it, and ani- 
mates it with an energy and a life not its own. 
Ye see me ; faith apprehends me as a present 
Saviour. The soul's glad consciousness reveals 
the presence of my love, the presence of my Father 
and of myself. "I will not leave you solita- 
ry ; I will come to you." 



HAS CHRIST COME? 133 



ins (Cljrint <Cmtn? 

THIS promise of the Eedeemer was not given 
to a favored few. It was not meant to be a bar- 
ren declaration of his own eternal existence and 
almighty power. It was intended to give comfort 
and support ; and it should give comfort and sup- 
port to every disciple. Our meditations should 
not dwell exclusively upon a crucified Saviour, 
upon an absent Saviour, upon a risen Saviour, 
upon a reigning Saviour, but more than all these 
upon a present, personal Saviour, abiding in the 
soul, its strength and its life. We speak much of 
the coming of Christ, and imagine that some glori- 
ous personal manifestation of the Redeemer to the 
world is the one grand and important event signi- 
fied by that coming. But the delicate, invisible, 
spiritual, habitual coming of Christ to the believ- 
ing soul, through its meditations on his word and 

7 



134 STKAY MEDITATIONS. 

by the suggestions of his Spirit is a higher ex- 
pression of his glory and his power than will be 
that august appearance amid thronging angels, 
that shall burn the heavens and dissolve the earth. 
Christ's coming is even now — every morning like 
the noiseless advent of the light, every evening 
like the gentle dripping of the dew, to the soul re- 
newed and sanctified. Has Christ thus come to 
me? Let me look not for special manifestations, 
but for daily evidences. 



4\)i Ipjntijjq nf Cjjrist, 

HOW precious is that experience of sorrow 
which brings Christ to the soul as a sympa- 
thizing friend ! The heart that mourns over its 
sins is naturally absorbed in the contemplation of 
Christ as its Eedeemei. His atoning sacrifice — 
Christ crucified — is the object of its devout affec- 



THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 136 

tion. In its view of Christ the cross is ever pres- 
ent; Christ on the cross is the Christ of its love, 
its trust, and its hope. To the penitent and be- 
lieving soul this must ever be the most precious 
and the most cherished view of Christ : 

" My faith looks up to thee, 
Thou Lamb of Calvary." 

"Without this view of Christ, without a trustful 
recognition of him as the Saviour from sin, with- 
out a clinging to his cross as the alone medium 
of pardon for guilt, of sanctification for impurity, 
of life and joy for spiritual death and condemna- 
tion, — all other views of Christ are meaningless 
and vain. Yet this view of Christ may be in- 
dulged too exclusively, and may shut out from 
the soul other aspects and relations most intimate 
and tender. While in one sense the cross brings 
the Saviour ever near, as the source of pardon 
and of spiritual life, in another it keeps him ever 
remote, and invests his office and work with a 
purely historical interest. Christ died for me on 
Calvary; Christ reigns for me in heaven; but 
Christ on the cross and Christ on the throne do 



136 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

not fill up the whole representation of Christ as 
given in the Scriptures. There is a living Christ 
present with his disciples, a guide, a counselor, 
a friend. 

The prophet Isaiah in his exquisite delineation 
of the Saviour's mission and death, while he gives 
prominence to an objective atonement — "He was 
wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for 
our iniquities" — introduces also the tender rela- 
tion of sympathy that Christ sustains toward his 
disciples. Contemplating the peculiar sufferings 
of Christ, which the Jewish nation at large would 
interpret as a retributive visitation, he exclaims, 
Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sor- 
rows. The reference here is not to the bearing 
of our sins in his own body on the tree, but to 
his voluntary participation in the trials, infirmities, 
and griefs of our e very-day life. The " griefs n 
are diseases and infirmities of the body ; the 
" sorrows " are anxieties, cares, and distresses of 
the mind ; — these Christ bears, lifts up and car- 
ries away as a burden from us. In recording the 
miracles of healing thri Jesus wrought, the evan- 
gelist Matthew observes that thus was fulfilled 
that which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, 



THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 137 

Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses. 
AYhat Jesus then did lie does essentially now for 
all that come to him in faith : he is touched with 
the feeling of our infirmities, not only through a 
historical experience, but by a present and an ac- 
tive sympathy. 

No doubt Christ even now ofttimes bears away 
human infirmities, healing diseases not by mirac- 
ulous agency but by his own sovereign power 
in answer to prayer. Especially does he reach 
diseases through their prime cause, which is sin, 
and which his sovereign grace removes in its 
curse, in its power, and sometimes also in its ef- 
fects. 

But the more immediate and the more affect- 
ing view of Christ in this relation is, that he en- 
ters with the most tender sympathy into our per- 
sonal faelings. How touching the manner of Jesus 
when he was about to effect a miraculous cure or 
to bestow some boon of priceless worth ! There 
was no ostentation in his bearing, there was no 
indifference to the surrounding grief, there was no 
cold professional dispensation of his services, there 
was no stern and repulsive mien to overawe a sup- 
pliant, there was no blunt and hasty performance 



138 STKAY MEDITATIONS. 



of an act that must startle and agitate while it 
cheered and blessed, but a quiet, gentle, tender, 
affectionate manner in working a miracle, that 
showed the heart of a man wielding the power of 
Grod. A ruler of the synagogue comes to him 
and falling at his feet, passionately entreats him to 
lay his healing hands upon a dying child. Jesus 
goes with him toward the house, knowing full 
well that the child is already dead, but haying 
purposed to restore her to life. On the way the 
servants and friends of the ruler hasten to meet 
him saying, " Thy daughter is dead ; why troublest 
thou the Master any farther?" The agonized 
heart of the father sinks within him. In a mo- 
ment he is plunged into the depths of despair. 
He had faith in Christ's power to heal, but the 
thought that Jesus could raise from the dead had 
not entered his mind. "Oh that death had de- 
layed one hour ! Oh that I had sooner gone for 
the Master ! Oh that Jesus had reached the house 
before she ceased to breathe ! Oh that he could 
have looked upon my dying child ! Alas, alas, 
it is too late, all is over !" Thus from an eager 
and confident hope the poor man sinks at once 
into the anguish of a hopeless sorrow. Now what 



THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 139 

saith Jesus ? lie does not break suddenly upon 
liim with, a reproof for lack of faith ; he does not 
startle him by the promise of an unheard-of mir- 
acle ; he does not speak confidently of his own 
power and his own intentions. He pities that 
broken-hearted father, and says to him gently, 
tenderly, Be not afraid, only believe. Then dismis- 
sing the multitude and all spectators but the pa- 
rents of the child, and his favorite disciples, he 
goes to the bedside and raises the lifeless damsel 
from her sleep. 

Jesus is passing with his disciples into the gate 
of Nain. He meets a sad procession attending to 
the sepulcher the body of a widow's only son. 
With the tendfrest compassion Jesus looks upon 
the sorrowing widow; he steps to her side, he 
whispers to her, Weep not ; then touches the bier 
and restores her son alive, and with his own hands 
presents him to his mother. 

Again, while Jesus for personal safety is so- 
journing beyond Jordan, tidings are brought that 
Lazarus, the head of that little family circle at 
Bethany where Jesus loved to resort, is sick ; 
Lazarus whom he loved — the brother of that Mary 
"which anointed the Lord with ointment, and 



140 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

wiped his feet with her hair." The message was 
sent doubtless in the hope that Jesus would at 
once hasten to the bedside and restore the sufferer 
to health ; but instead of this Jesus remains be- 
yond Jordan until he knows that Lazarus is dead 
and buried; then, spite of personal danger, he 
wends his way toward Bethany. Before he reaches 
the house of mourning Martha hastes to meet 
him, and her first salutation is a lament that Jesus 
had not been there in season to arrest the sore ca- 
lamity ; Lord, if thou hadst been here, ray brother 
had not died; and yet she seems to cherish some 
vague idea that Jesus still may help her ; / know 
that even noiv, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God 
will give it thee. But when Jesus f ently intimates 
that her brother shall rise again, her faith receives 
the assurance only with reference to the Last Day. 
And now as he stands thus pathetically discours- 
ing with the disconsolate Martha, the more sensi- 
tive and soulful Mary comes up and throws her- 
self at his feet, — the same feet that she had wiped 
with her hair and had kissed in grateful adoration 
of her Lord — and there sobs out, as if she were 
once more laying her brother in the tomb, Lord, 
if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. 



THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST. 141 

Thus grief gushes out afresh, at sight of each 
friend of the departed, and if that friend is near 
and beloved, the ceaseless current of sorrow is 
tinged with the vain regret that he or she was 
not present at the parting scene. " Would God 
that you had been here." But now this ever-pain- 
ful regret is immeasurably heightened at the sight 
of Him who had he been present would not only 
have soothed the dying pillow, but could even have 
averted death. "Dear Lord, if thou hadst been 
here, my brother, my dear, my only brother had 
not died. Alas, dear Lazarus, my brother, my 
help, my stay, I might then have had thee still." 
The Jews, her friends and kindred, touched with 
this new sorrow, weep with Mary. And now, 
what does the Master ? — who delayed to come to 
Lazarus living that he might raise up Lazarus 
dead. Does he slight their grief or abruptly check 
the expressions of nature? Does he at once an- 
nounce his own purpose and shock their agitated 
minds with an idea so foreign to their thoughts 
and so incredible ? Nay, nay — the Divine waits 
on the human — the Man weeps for what the God 
shall presently restore. Jesus groans in spirit, 
and is troubled with a sympathetic grief. He lifts 



142 STEAY MEDITATION'S. 

the sobbing Mary from the ground and mingles 
his tears with hers, as he tenderly asks, Where 
have ye laid him ? They lead the way, and Jesns 
weeps. Going to the grave to loose the bands of 
death, the Son of God bedews the path with tears. 
He takes Martha and Mary to his breast, he bears 
their grief and carries their sorrow, and groaning 
and sobbing all the way, he supports their totter- 
ing footsteps. The Jews, moved at the scene, ex- 
claim, Behold hoiv he loved him. And now they 
are at the sepulcher ; the grief of the bereaved sis- 
ters here breaks forth incontrollably, and Jesus 
again groans as he carries their sorrows ; he yields 
himself to all the gushing sympathies of his own 
heart, though by a word he could, as soon he will, 
stay every grief. Why went the Master thus sor- 
rowing to the grave ? Why wept he then, who 
wept not under the cruel scourging or along his 
own via dolorosa ? Why wept he when about to 
raise the dead, but to assure thee, my soul, of 
sympathy in thy tears for those whom he will not 
yet give back to thee from the grave ? Thou 
blessed Lord, dost thou bear my griefs and carry 
my sorrows ? And may I look to thee, not only 
upon Calvary, my Saviour from sin, but here in 



Christ's sympathy. 143 

my solitary chamber, there by the new-made sep- 
ulcher, ever in my desolate heart, my tearful 
friend, my sympathizing comforter? Blessed 
Jesus, thou dost not chide my tears ; thou dost bear 
my grief and carry my sorrow. 



(Cljrist's Ijmtjiittjitf, 

AND is it indeed true that Jesus is my personal 
friend, and that he is interested in all that 
affects my welfare ? Assuredly this is so if I truly 
love and obey my Lord. Ye are my friends, if ye 
do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call 
you not servants ; for the servant hnoiceth not ivhat 
his lord doeili ; but I have ccdled you friends ; for cdl 
things that 1 have heard of my Father I have made 
Jcnoum to you. Christ grants his disciples the ut- 
most freedom of approach to himself, he admits 



144 STKAY MEDITATION'S. 

tliem fully to his confidence, lie instructs and com- 
forts them, he enters into all their desires, their 
feelings, and their wants. Especially does he 
manifest his friendly sympathy with his disciples 
in times of danger, of temptation, and of sorrow ; 
11 he is touched with the feeling of our infirmities." 
"With what tenderness does a parent watch oyer a 
delicate child! With what constant sympathy 
and solicitude does one carry in his thoughts a 
sick and dying friend ! With what spontaneity 
does the mind in such circumstances answer to 
every phase of the disease and to every wish or 
emotion of the sufferer ! Does that delicate little 
one, unconscious that its frail life is wasting away, 
exhibit a languid cheerfulness at the approach of 
its father or its mother, and throw its gentle na- 
ture upon the sympathies of parental love ? How 
promptly does that love respond to every childish 
feeling; — pity is merged in a momentary joy as 
the imparted life rolls back its sparkling current 
into the soul from which it sprung, and then joy 
is overwhelmed in turn as the deej3est springs of 
emotion are opened by the cry of sudden pain, or 
by the look of languor, of disease, and of death. 
lias that child a want, a wish, a grief — all childish 



Christ's sympathy. 145 

though, it be — the breaking of a toy, the pricking 
of a pin, — the heart of the parent does not chide 
it, does not make light of it, but quietly soothes 
the sorrow with words and looks of sympathy. 
That dear child lives ever in the parent's heart, 
and is a partaker of the parent's life. 

Is a dear friend drooping under the slow, sure, 
fatal progress of disease in some vital organ ? How 
does the heart ebb and flow with the advance or 
the seeming recession of that disease, and with the 
fears or hopes of the invalid ? With what affec- 
tionate promptness is every wish gratified ; with 
what tender eagerness is every want anticipated ; 
with what exhilaration is the least improvement 
hailed ; with what deep though smothered sadness 
is every symptom of decline detected ; how is the 
pallid countenance and the wasted form of that 
loved one present amid all the thoughts, and cares, 
and employments of the day ; in all the dreams 
and watches of the night A whisper, a motion, 
a sigh, a look — any the least intimation from the 
sufferer — how does it draw upon every chord and 
fiber of the sympathizing heart that yearns over 
the life that is receding from its embraces. And 
thus it is that the blessed Eedeemer is touched 



146 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

with, the feeling of our infirmities, and bears the 
griefs and carries the sorrows of those lie loves. 
Nothing that affects their welfare is too trivial for 
him to notice. As the parent shuns not the peti- 
tion or the grief of the child because it is childish, 
as the friend does not slight the humor of the in- 
valid though it may be weak and frivolous — so 
neither does Jesus overlook the every-day inci- 
dents in the life of his disciples because these in 
themselves are insignificant. Whatever affects 
the welfare of one he loves, interests his heart 
also, — either to gratify the wish or to allay the de- 
sire by substituting a more valuable good. Christ 
was invested with a full and proper humanity, a 
human nature of the most exquisite tone, that he 
might sympathize with and succor those that he 
came to redeem. 

But with this manifested sympathy there is also 
an imparted strength. Fear not, I am with you. 
I will not leave you desolate ; I WILL COME TO YOU. 
My grace is sufficient for thee ; for my grace is made 
perfect in weakness. 

How near and how lovely a friend is Christ ! 
Man needs such a friend. The heart is formed 
for sympathy. In its joys, in its sorrows, in its 



Christ's sympathy. 147 

affections, it retires ever to the innermost circle, 
and there in the dear companionship of one tried 
friend unbosoms itself and gives to its emotions 
their utmost play. Without such a resource the 
heart is lonely and wretched indeed. How blessed 
then is that presentation of Christ which places 
him within that innermost circle, which enshrines 
him in the very heart itself, nearer than the near- 
est earthly friend, and which keeps him there un- 
changed, in all the fullness and tenderness of hu- 
man sympathy, and with all the strength and 
consolation of divine grace, when that innermost 
circle is made vacant, and the heart finds no out- 
ward support for its torn and bleeding tendrils. 
Let me then accustom myself to the thought of 
Christ as a present, personal friend ; let me learn 
to confide in him as fully and as freely as in the 
dearest earthly confidant ; — nay more, to tell him 
of all my wants, my temptations, my sufferings, 
my cares, my griefs, my infirmities — to tell him 
of these without one distrustful thought of his 
kind sympathizing interest, or of his ability and 
his willingness to help in every time of need. 
Above all, let me ever keep his friendship by 
avoiding whatever is displeasing to him, and by 



148 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

devoting my whole heart to his service. Oh the 
misery of being without such a friend ; to live in 
a world where all other friends must fail, where 
life itself must fail, and have no interest in this 
Almighty, Everlasting Friend! 



THE believer in Christ should banish all solici- 
tude about the event of death to himself or 
to others who depart in the faith. Christ assumed 
our nature, "took part of flesh and blood, that 
through death " — first endured in his own person 
and then vanquished by his resurrection — "he 
might destroy him that had the power of death, 
that is, the devil ; and deliver them who, through 
fear of death, were all their life-time subject to 
bondage." The Christian has no occasion to be 



DEATH NO TERROR. 149 

in bondage to the fear of death ; indeed, by such. 
a bondage he dishonors the power and the grace 
of Christ, and puts discredit upon his finished 
work. 

It is sometimes the case that even where the 
intellect, the heart, and the will are all properly 
disciplined for the advent of death, there is a 
nervous apprehension of the mere physical pro- 
cess that renders the thought of death unwel- 
come. And indeed there must be something re- 
pugnant to the sensibilities of our nature in the 
thought of dissolution, whenever the mind dwells 
upon this apart from its relations to a higher ex- 
istence. The demolition of a house in which we 
have lived from infancy, and every stone and 
beam and arch and angle of which has some as- 
sociation of childhood and of home, awakens feel- 
ings of sadness, though the building is old and 
crazy, and no longer fit to be occupied. But the 
mind should not live thus in the past, and hug 
the old stones and timbers and nails, as if these 
were home or had in themselves any life and vir- 
tue ; it should look forward to the house that is 
to succeed the time-worn tenement, should study 
its plan, arrangement, and effect, and transmute 



150 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

the memories of the old into the hopes of the 
new. It is thus by a beautiful analogy that Chry- 
sostom discourses of the believer's change. at death. 
" "When a man is about to rebuild an old and tot- 
tering house, he first sends out its occupants, then 
tears it down, and builds anew a more splendid 
one. This occasions no grief to the occupants, 
but rather joy. For they do not think of the de- 
molition which they see, but of the house which 
is to come, though not yet seen. When God is 
about to do a similar work, he destroys the body 
and removes the soul that was dwelling in it, as 
from some house, that he may build it anew and 
more splendidly and again bring the soul with 
greater glory into it. Let us not, therefore, regard 
the tearing down, but the splendor which is to suc- 
ceed." Thus in a higher strain does the Apostle 
speak of this blessed exchange : " For ive know that 
if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, 
we have a building of God, an house not made with 
hands, eternal in the heavens." The Christian should 
familiarize his mind with the thought of dying as 
one familiarizes himself with the thought of ex- 
changing an old and decaying though still service- 
able house or garment, for one new, bright, glori- 



DEATH NO TERROR. 151 

ous — of better material, yes, of an imperishable 
fabric. It is idle to attempt to conceal from one's 
self the fact of his own mortality and of his ex- 
ceeding frailty. And it is unwise and unnecessary 
to allow in the mind a secret dread of death. That 
event should be familiar to the Christian, not as a 
process of physical decay, but as a process of 
mysterious and sudden but of certain and glorious 
transition from the seen to the unseen, and from 
the mortal to the immortal. 

11 The Christian, when he leaves the body, is at 
once with the Lord Jesus. He rushes, as it were, 
instinctively to his presence, and casts himself at 
his feet. He has no other home than where the 
Saviour is; he thinks of no future joy or glory 
but that which is to be enjoyed with him. "Why 
then should we fear death ? Lay out of view, as 
we may, the momentary pang, the chilliness, and 
the darkness of the grave, and think of that which 
will be the moment after death — the view of the 
Redeemer, the sight of the splendors of the heav- 
enly world, the angels, the spirits of the just made 
perfect, the river of the paradise of God, and the 
harps of praise, and what has the Christian to fear 
in the prospect of dying?" — (Barnes.) 



152 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

The Christian should have a present assurance 
of his own future blessedness. Many Christians 
accustom themselves to speak doubtfully of their 
own good estate, and even seem to regard this as 
the part of true Christian humility. But so far 
from exhibiting humility, this may only exhibit 
unbelief and an unworthy distrust of Christ. 
There is no lack of humility in having a confi- 
dence of one's personal interest in Christ, and 
therefore a confidence of personal salvation. True 
humility is shown in tracing this glorious hope to 
Christ alone. Paul was not wanting in humility ; 
and yet Paul said, "We know that when this body 
dies there is prepared for us another abode, heav- 
enly, divine, eternal. This he said not in the way 
of a general proposition of such as were true 
Christians, but as a fact immediately personal to 
himself. We who are hunted to death for Christ's 
sake — I, Paul and my fellow-servants, know that 
we have a house eternal in the heavens. There- 
fore, he says, We are always confident — of good 
cheer — knowing that whilst we are at home in the 
body , ive are absent from the Lord — while we live in 
the flesh, we have not the visible presence of 
Christ — but we are confident that as soon as we 



DEATH NO TERROR. 153 

drop this fleshly tabernacle we shall see Christ ; 
and therefore are witting rather to be absent from the 
body and to be present with the Lord. 

John was not lacking in the modesty of the 
true Christian ; and yet his first epistle is a con- 
tinuous series of asseverations of his personal in- 
terest in Christ and in the heavenly inheritance. 
Beloved, now are we the sons of God ; and it doth 
not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that 
when he shall appear we shall be like him. We know 
that ice have passed from death to life because we love 
the brethren : hereby know ice that we dwell in him 
and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. 
Now every Christian may have the same assur- 
ance with Paul and John, if he has the same evi- 
dences ; and he may have the same evidences if 
he is a true Christian — if he really loves God. 
The great thing for me to know is that I am in- 
deed a Christian ; then I know that I have a house 
in heaven. And may I not know whether I am 
a Christian — whether I hate sin, whether I love 
Cod, whether I am supremely devoted to Christ, 
whether I am striving to be pure and holy ? And 
have I been these many years a professed follower 
of Christ, and do I not yet know whether I really 



154 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

love him ? But if I love Mm and his cause, if I 
forsake sin and serve Grod with all my heart, then 
surely I am a Christian, and if I am a Christian 
why may I not be just as confident of my future 
good estate as was Paul or John ? Ought I not 
to be thus confident, not for my own comfort 
merely but for the honor of my Lord, and as a 
testimony to the power of his Gospel? Come 
then, my soul, grasp with a firmer hold on Christ ; 
assure thyself that thou art in his love ; then 
mayest thou overleap the gloomy vale, scarce 
feeling its damps and its shadows, and alight 
with ethereal freedom upon the banks of the river 
of life. 



THE GAIN OF LOSSES. 155 



(Cjic §&iu nf it n 3 s e s . 

I HAVE often heard it said, and indeed I have 
often said to others, when Christian friends 
have been removed by death, " Your loss is their 
gain." And this is a thought of consolation. 
One's affection for those he loves should be so 
pure, so unselfish, that he would willingly be de- 
prived of their sweet companionship if thus their 
welfare could be enhanced. A parent would be 
very selfish who from personal considerations 
should insist upon retaining a child at home when 
the happiness and the usefulness of that child re- 
quired that he or she should enter into a new re- 
lation and establish another and an independent 
home, perhaps thousands of miles away. For 
what has God given me children ? Is it merely 
that I may toy with them and dandle them upon 
the knee, and in their riper years be folded in their 



156 STKAY MEDITATIONS. 

embraces and soothed with their love ? For what 
should I train my children ? Is it mainly that 
they may serve me and promote my interests ? 
Whenever it is clearly for their welfare and their 
usefulness that they should quit the home of their 
childhood, shall I not — though, it be with unutter- 
able yearnings — bid them God-speed ? Shall I 
not surrender them even though I know that they 
will love another more than they love me, and 
another home more than mine ? When, however, 
a child leaves the parental roof, it is by no means 
certain that this will be for the good of the child. 
He may be willful in his plans or misguided in 
his choice ; at all events the problem of life is yet 
to be solved by him, and he may find it hard to 
cipher. True, Providence directs the change, but 
human agency and perhaps human folly and wick- 
edness also are concerned in it. 

But when God by his own direct act takes from 
me a dear friend who is also his dear child, then 
do I know that it is well with that friend, — better, 
far better than to abide with me ; and knowing 
this, I would chide all selfish longings, I would 
even repress the noblest, purest love for thee as 
mine, and rejoice that thou art His, and wilt be 



THE GAIN OF LOSSES. 157 

infinitely and forever blessed in His love. I 
sought to bless thee while God intrusted thee to 
my guardianship, — thy happiness was ever my 
delight — but since He now would bless thee more 
than human love could ever compass, go thou and 
dwell with Him, though thou shalt love Him in- 
finitely more than thou lovedst me and His home 
infinitely more than mine. Thus my heart an- 
swereth, not from the depths and gloom of stoical 
philosophy, but from the heights of Christian faith 
and hope. My loss is thy gain, and as I love thee 

I must and will rejoice in this. 

But is it not my gain also ? Truly it must so 
appear if I value the spiritual life above the tem- 
poral and the future above the present. A child- 
less man once said to me as we stood together by 
the coffin of an infant that had fallen asleep, 

II Much as I love children, I am content to be 
without them when I think of such a loss as this. 
If I am denied the pleasure of having children, I 
am also spared the pain of losing them." " Yes, 
yes, indeed," I said; "but neither can you know 
the iov of having brought into life an immortal 

Ox/ o o 

being that has gone to heaven as j^our child, and 
that in all the endless progression of its existence, 



158 STKAY MEDITATIONS. 

in the highest development of its powers and the 
fullest realization of its bliss, shall be allied to 
you as to no other being in the universe except 
its Maker. You cannot know what it is to lose a 
child ; but neither can you know what it is to 
have a child in heaven. The gain transcends the 
loss to the parent as well as to the child." How 
great was the gain to Jacob when the Ishmaelitish 
horde, tempted by the cruelty and rapacity of his 
brethren, bore away the young and tender Joseph 
as a slave, only that he knight become a prince in 
a foreign land and the saviour of his people. How 
unspeakable the gain to the Christian parent when 
with tender and gracious hand the Lord of life 
and glory bears away his little prattling child, and 
clothes it with princely splendor among the angels 
of God. 

The childless man has no living contact with 
the future. Ancestors he has, but no posterity. 
The stream of life that has flowed through many 
generations is lost in him. He may be a treasure 
to society, a blessing to mankind, a great, a good, 
a faithful man, — more useful even in his individ- 
ual life than others are through a score of children. 
He may repair his childlessness, like Bacon, by 



THE GAIN OF LOSSES. 159 

bequeathing to the world immortal thoughts, like 
Washington by bequeathing immortal deeds. Like 
Neander he may leave treasures of learning in the 
jeweled casket of a serene and radiant life, like 
Girard he may leave treasures of wealth in the 
marble pile that buries the orphan from the sunlit 
world. But in his personal sympathies and expe- 
riences he must ever want the joy that flows from 
an imparted, reflex life in the happy hearts and 
the beaming faces of one's own children. His joy 
may even now be full, but should this new chan- 
nel be opened he would quickly find it fuller. So 
he who has no dear friend in the better world, 
who has not been called to surrender to heaven 
one whom he has cherished here, lacks as } r et an 
experience that would link him to the spiritual 
and the eternal with the most fervent sympathies 
of his being. All heavenly he may be in his 
temper £.nd in his life ; his faith may be strong, 
his hope bright, his union with Christ complete, 
but he wants that tender and endearing sympathy 
with heaven that comes from having there a pa- 
rent, a child, a sister, a wife, and that gives to the 
unseen world a home-like feeling and a present 
reality. lie who has caught the last affectionate 
breathings of the departing saint ; who even as from 



160 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

the other side of the river of death has received 
the farewell greeting of faith and love and joy, 
has thenceforth a new experience of things 
spiritual and heavenly, has a vested interest in 
heaven, has a more assured hold upon its realities, 
and is a nearer partaker of its life. 

The gain of such an experience, the value of 
such a palpable and personal interest in that world 
may well mitigate if it do not compensate his loss. 
New links bind him to that great spiritual world 
of which he is a member, and of which he shall 
soon become more cognizant, when flesh and sense 
and all the external media of thought shall give 
place to the direct intuition of God and of the fu- 
ture state. As each relationship of life, son, 
brother, husband, father, opens a new experience 
of sympathy and affection, so does this personal 
affinity with some already in the world of spirits, 
the marriage of souls that survives the dissolution 
of earthly ties, bring with it a life-like experience 
of the unseen, the spiritual, the eternal, that binds 
the soul more closely to its higher destiny, and 
imparts to it in hopes and aspirations an exceed- 
ing gain Why art thou burdened, O my soul, 
with the pain of earthly loss ? Is not thy loss 



MY FUTURE MANSION. 161 

their gain whom thou didst love ? and ijf their 
gain, is it not thy gain also, who art forever linked 
to them as a partner of their blessedness ? 



3Kq ^utttrr 3# it us inn, 

HOW beautiful the thought that heaven is a 
home where all the children of Faith and 
Purity are gathered in their Father's house. I 
never could discover anything to kindle the aspi- 
rations of the soul or to ennoble its aims, in the 
thought of being hereafter absorbed in the Infinite 
or diffused like some subtle medium in endless 
space. Locality, personality, identity, and some 
sort of corporeity seem necessary to the highest 
blessedness when we shall put off this tabernacle. 
Hence is provided a spiritual body for those who 



162 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

here have worn a material form ; hence, too, pro- 
vision is made for future recognitions and for pe- 
culiar associations between those who have been 
here allied by the tenderest ties of earth hallowed 
with the spirit and the hope of heaven. The Sa- 
viour promised his disciples a home. " In my 
Father's house are many mansions ; I go to pre- 
pare a place for you." We shall sit down with 
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of 
God. We shall know Moses and Elias, and Paul 
and John, and all the holy of whom we have read 
or whom we have known upon earth. The most 
ecstatic vision of a pure and blissful society, of a 
calm and holy fellowship, of an unbroken peace, 
will then be realized. Yet there is even something 
more than this general abode provided for believ- 
ers, each of whom shall have his own house, some 
radiant and ethereal, yet cohesive and palpable 
dwelling-place for his personal soul. 

The "building of God" of which the Apostle 
speaks, is something pertaining to the person ; not 
an abode into which he enters, but a mansion or a 
covering that attaches itself to him like the body 
he casts off at death — a something that he wears 
as a garment, and with which, he is clothed upon 



MY FUTURE MANSION, 163 

in his own proper person. It is not a palace in 
the skies to which he goes, — though this also 
opens its portals upon his dying gaze — it is not 
merely an apartment in the celestial city into 
which he enters, but a form, a garment, a habita- 
tion, that thenceforth becomes a part of his proper 
self, and that pertains to his personal existence. 
In its characteristics this is incorporeal, incorrup- 
tible, heavenly ; it is prepared and bestowed 
immediately by God himself; it is eternal and im- 
perishable. 

With such a house shall I be clothed upon if I 
am found in Christ when the soul shall quit its 
present habitation. With what holy courage and 
fortitude should this nerve me in all the conflicts 
of this mortal state. This mortal life has its 
trials ; this mortal body has its pains. We thai 
in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: 
burdened with sins, burdened with cares, burden- 
ed with labors, burdened with trials, burdened 
with sufferings, burdened with sorrows. How 
often by reason of our connection with the body 
do we groan, being burdened, and pant for our re- 
lease. Yet little comfort would there be in the 
thought of dying if that were all. We should only 
drag our weary footsteps downward to the grave. 



164 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

But what the mere thought of dying will not 
give, the hope of glorious transformation can and 
will. This uplifts the soul to a higher range of 
vision, whence all earthly interests seem insignifi- 
cant. What matter the fatigues and perils of the 
way if we are j ourn eying homeward. What matters 
it that as mere pilgrims here we camp out under 
a worn and shattered tent through which the wind 
pierces and the rain beats, if we are on our way 
to a safe and substantial habitation already full in 
view ? Thus Paul was cheerful amid all his la- 
bors and perils. He did not faint ; he did not 
give over in despair ; his afflictions were light and 
but for a moment, in comparison with the exceed- 
ing weight of glory. 

The Christian should live in the constant antici- 
pation and desire of his heavenly home. Seek 
those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on 
the right hand of God. Set your affections on things 
above, not on things on the earth. And the motive 
for this is that when Christ, who is our life, shall 
appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory. 
Heaven should engross the thoughts and the affec- 
tions of the believer. Here, however, there is 
need of discrimination.' The believer should not 



MY FUTURE MANSION. 165 

indulge a repining spirit, nor cherish a sense of 
weariness and disgust toward this world, and make 
the excellence of heaven consist only in a freedom 
from toil, and care, and pain. There is no merit in 
merely pining for heaven as a rest from the weari- 
ness and the pains of the body. lie should shrink 
from no duty, responsibility or trial, especially in 
Christ's service ; and his anticipations of heaven 
should be not sensuous but spiritual. Not that ice 
would be unclothed — merely set free from this body 
of sin and death — but clothed upon, covered with 
celestial glory, that mortality might be swallowed, up 
of life. 

" Here in the body pent, 

Absent from thee I roam ; 
Yet nightly pitch my moving tent 
A day's march nearer home. 

M So when my latest breath 
Shall rend the vail in twain, 
By death I shall escape from death 
And life eternal gain. 

" Knowing as I am known, 

How shall I love that word ; 
And oft repeat before the throne — 
Forever with the Lord." 



166 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 



TT7HERB is the spirit-world ? In what region 
f T of space is it located ? Has it any well-de- 
fined boundaries ? What relation does it sustain 
to the material universe ? How far are its inhab- 
itants removed from my person, from the place 
where I now write ? These are not idle questions. 
They are questions that come up from the deep- 
est soundings of the soul. Is there no meaning 
in that spontaneous and universal feeling of those 
whose friends have passed into the spirit-world, 
that the departed are yet near, and are yet in 
some measure cognizant of what is transpiring in 
this world? To the cold philosopher such a 
thought may pass for the vagary of an imagina- 
tion excited by grief. To any mind as yet inex- 
perienced in the separation of friends and kindred 
by death, this may seem at best but an uncertain 



THE SPIRIT- WORLD. 167 

and an unprofitable speculation. But to almost 
every mind experienced in such separations there 
comes a vivid conception of the reality and the 
nearness of the spiritual world, and it finds a mean- 
ing and a power in the fancies it had scouted. Is 
not this uniform experience a sort of sign-language 
by which the soul converses with the spiritual and 
the immortal ? The parted veil through which 
the ascending spirit returns to God, affords to the 
watching, sympathizing soul an outlook upon the 
spiritual world, through which it gains new and 
wondrous conceptions of the boundless mysteries 
in the creation. Oh, what glad surprises, what 
sublime studies, what glorious discoveries lie just 
before us in the future, lie just around us in the 
present. There are moments when the soul, ab- 
sorbed in divine contemplations, forgetful of the 
body and of all its associations with earth, suffused 
w r ith spiritual influence, permeated with truth, 
lives only in its loves, in its sweetest, purest, holi- 
est affections, and knows these to be continuous 
and immortal — beyond the reach of change or of 
death ; when it feels itself linked to a holy and 
blessed communion of spirits everywhere sur- 
rounding it, and embracing it with a love nearer 



168 STKAY MEDITATIONS. 

and more exquisite than any to which, eye and 
tongue can give expression. 

Let me look at this matter calmly. I am sit- 
ting by the side of one whose soul is interwoven 
with my own. All of physical life, of outward 
beauty, of vivacity and grace that lent expression 
to that soul, is wasted, marred, or paralyzed by 
disease ; and nothing now remains but the memo- 
ries, the experiences, the hopes of that soul, to 
maintain its wonted communion with another. 
Yet as these find labored and imperfect utterance, 
my own soul kindles to an ecstasy of love, and 
that pallid and wasted form wears again its accus- 
tomed freshness and beauty, and grows luminous 
with celestial light. Nothing common or indiffer- 
ent may now intrude ; we talk awhile of the soul 
and its destiny, of heaven and its glory, of Christ 
and his love, and even as we speak, that form 
grows still, that hand lies motionless, those lips 
forbear to move. Came not that last, faint, broken 
response, " Yes, all is peace," from the emancipat- 
ed spirit already upon the other side of the river 
of death ? Even as in the still night one con- 
verses awhile with a wearied friend, and receives 
answers briefer and briefer, monosyllabic even, 



THE SPIRIT-WORLD. 169 

yet always intelligent and distinct, exhibiting con- 
sciousness and comprehension, till at length si- 
lence assures him that in the shortest interval be- 
tween two questions his friend has fallen asleep 
with faculties at rest but unimpaired, and that 
shall arouse to a more vigorous activity, so does 
one see the worn and wearied body yield to the 
last sleep of death, while yet the soul lives and 
needs no rest. 

Where now is that spirit ? Whither gone from 
me ? Do memory, and sympathy, and love, re- 
main only to the soul that is yet imprisoned in 
the body ; or do the fibers of the heart, all rudely 
exposed by tearing away their kindred soil, grow 
now like plants that feed on air, and grasp with a 
palpable hold the spiritual and the eternal, that 
intersperse their fibers still with these ? Do we 
not lose in the conception of the spiritual world, 
and in its power over the mind, by fixing it too 
remote from us, and by viewing it too much in 
contrast with the life of the soul here ? What is 
eternal life? To know God and Jesus Christ. 
What then has death wrought upon the soul, upon 
its character, its affections, or its substance ? Noth- 
ing ; it has but liberated it into a higher stage of 



170 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

its existence, where the life of love and purity 
here begun in the knowledge of God and in the 
faith of Christ, shall be developed and perfected 
forever. To accomplish this there is no need of 
an infinite remove in space. 

The renewed soul has already an adaptation for 
its new sphere of action. The souls of departed 
saints are not in a state of unconsciousness ; they 
have only removed from one house or apartment 
into another. Of the righteous dead it is said, 
" They all live unto God;" though dead to us, be- 
cause they are removed from our sight, and have 
ceased to act here, they live and act without inter- 
ruption in the presence of God. This plainly is 
the teaching of Scripture. They enter at once 
upon a state of conscious and joyous activity. 
For this they have already an adaptation ; it needs 
no miracle to prepare them for a place and a part 
in higher scenes. The laying off the body — as a 
friend suggests — may be like taking on a new 
sense, — like couching a cataract in a blind man's 
eye, and giving him sight. And what a wonder- 
ful revelation of the universe is given by that one 
acquisition ! 

11 Thus," says that profound thinker, Isaac Tay- 



THE SPIRIT-WORLD. 171 

lor, "thus, when the infant wakes into the light 
of this world, every organ presently assumes its 
destined function; the heaving bosom confesses 
the fitness of the material it inhales to support 
the new style of existence ; and the senses admit 
the first impressions of the external world with a 
sort of anticipated familiarity ; and though utterly 
untaught in the scenes upon which it has so sud- 
denly entered, and inexperienced in the orders of 
the place where it must, ere long, act its part, yet 
it is truly meet to be a partaker of the inheritance 
of life. And thus, too, a real meetness for his 
birth into the future life may belong to the Chris- 
tian, though he be utterly ignorant of its circum- 
stances and conditions. But the functions of that 
new life have been long in a hidden play of pre- 
paration for full activity. He has waited in the 
coil of mortality only for the moment when he 
should inspire the ether of the upper world, and 
behold the light of eternal day, and hear the 
voice of new companions, and taste of the immor- 
tal fruit, and drink of the river of life ; and then, 
after, perhaps, a short season of nursing in the 
arms of the elder members of the family above, 
he will take his place in the service and orders of 



172 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

the heavenly house, nor even have room to regret 
the ignorances of his mortal state. There is a 
preparation here for that higher world, and an 
adaptation to it immediately after death. 7 ' 

That the disembodied spirit — sanctified by grace 
— enters at once upon this blessed and glorious 
activity, the intimations of the Scriptures leave 
us no room to doubt. "Whether for the purpose 
of such an agency it is at once endowed with some 
sort of corporeity, '" clothed upon " with some pal- 
pable and saintly form, is not certainly revealed, 
The transfiguration of Jesus upon the mount, 
when to the wondering eyes of Peter, James, and 
John, " his face did shine as the sun, and his rai- 
ment was white as the light," shows what a won- 
drous change may be wrought upon the human 
body in an instant of time. The appearance also 
of Moses and Elias in palpable forms, distinct 
from each other, and their talking with Jesus in 
an audible voice, shows that departed saints are 
capable of resuming a connection with this mate- 
rial world whenever God wills it. The body of 
Jesus after his resurrection, which could be seen 
and handled by the disciples, and recognized as 
the very form of their crucified Lord, was yet so 



THE SPIRIT-WORLD. 173 

subtil and attenuated that lie could suddenly ap- 
pear to their view without their perceiving whence 
or how he came, and could vanish from the sight 
of those with whom he had walked, and talked, 
and broken bread. This shows us that spirits 
may have a visible form altogether different in 
material and structure from the body worn in 
this world, and that this form may be possessed 
immediately after death. The chariot of fire and 
the horses of fire that parted Elijah from Elisha 
and bore up Elijah by a flaming whirlwind into 
heaven, — the horses and chariots of fire that filled 
the mountain round about Elisha in Dothan, were 
but single manifestations of that spiritual world 
that evermore surrounds us, and which the servant 
of Elisha saw, not because it was clothed with 
visibility for the occasion, but because his eyes 
were opened to behold it. "He maketh his min- 
isters flames of fire." But be that as it may, it is 
a revealed fact, that the believing soul at death 
enters upon a high, a blessed, and an immortal 
state of existence and of action, where it finds 
itself at home, to which it is at once adapted, so 
that in putting off the body of death it is not left 
nailed, but puts on a new garment of celestial 



174 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

fabric; — "life is lapsed in immortality " — "mor- 
tality is swallowed up of life." 

The spirit-world is not indefinitely removed 
from us in space, nor as related to our present ca- 
pacities and adaptations. But how am I related 
to that world ? Am I altogether isolated from its 
interests, its activities, its sympathies, its commu- 
nion and its joys, while here in the flesh? With 
one department of the spiritual world I have di- 
rectly to do. As a Christian struggling for the 
mastery of principle and faith over the world and 
sense, "I wrestle not against flesh and blood, but 
against principalities, against powers, against the 
rulers of the darkness of this world, against spir- 
itual wickedness in high places." And can it be 
that these mighty spiritual forces of evil are let 
loose upon my soul, and that there are no friendly 
forces engaged for my protection and defense ? Is 
the battle for my soul in the spirit-world waged 
altogether on one side ? Not so surely : The angel 
of the Lord encampeth roundabout them that fear him; 
Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to min- 
ister for them icho shall be heirs of salvation ? I am 
surrounded with a cloud of witnesses to cheer and 
animate me in the race ; I am aided with more 



THE SPIRIT-WORLD. 175 

than human sympathy and succor in the strife for 
an immortal crown. 

Whether spirits who have known me more in- 
timately here, still watch over my defenseless way, 
or have any power or any mission of guardianship 
and of succor, I cannot know. But is there not a 
beautiful truth underlying the exquisite verse of 
Keble in which he thus consoles the gentle maiden 
sorrowing for the infant sister snatched from her 
guardian love ? 



" Thy first glad earthly task is o'er, 
And dreary seems thy way, 
But what if nearer than before 
She watch thee even to-day ? 



; What if henceforth by heaven's decree 

She leave thee not alone, 
But in her turn prove guide to thee 
In ways to angels known ? 



" O yield thee to her whispering sweet: 
Away with thoughts of gloom ! 
In love the loving spirits greet, 
Who wait to bless her tomb. 



176 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

" In living hope with her unseen 
Walk as in hallow'd air ; 
When foes are strong and trials keen 
Think, < What if she be there?' " 



€\t Ipirittmltttj nf Jfasm. 

IN tlie closing chapters of Bevelation, the Spirit- 
uality of Heaven is brought into view in the 
sublime idea of the absence of all symbols of 
worship. Heaven is described by what it is not 
rather than by what it is — which -indeed could not 
be brought within the compass of human lan- 
guage. In looking at a picture of the New Jeru- 
salem, the eye naturally seeks the Temple which 
should crown its heights, more vast and gorgeous 
than that which stood upon Moriah. But in vain 
does it look for a correspondence in this respect 



SPIRITUALITY OF HE A VEX. 177 

with the earthly symbol. By one stroke of the 
pencil, the temple with its mystic treasures, its 
divinely-patterned furniture and ornaments, its 
altars and its sacrifices, its priests and its worship, 
is obliterated forever. The inspired Eevelator, 
who was carried away in the Spirit to a great and 
high mountain whence he could view the city of 
God, tells us, as if filled with surprise, " I saw no 
temple therein" 

But bewildering as was this announcement of 
the inspired seer, not only to the Jew, to whom 
the Temple was the glory of the city and the land, 
the center toward which his devout aspirations 
were ever tending, but also to the Christian who 
had learned to trace in that temple and ritual, as 
in symbolic lines, the priesthood and the sacrifice 
of Christ, — contrary as is this announcement of 
the want of a Temple in the New Jerusalem, to 
our natural conceptions of the antitype of the city 
of David, it yet gives us an insight into the Spiritu- 
ality of Heaven and its worship, such as no other 
language could have conveyed. There is in these 
words an uplifting of the soul into the very atmos- 
phere of Heaven ; — as if the same Spirit who 
carried John to his high place of vision, had lifted 



178 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

us out of the body, and away from its dependence 
upon material objects, and bade us view not the 
place of worship but the Being whom we worship 
— above all place, or circumstance, or rite, or form 
— Himself a Temple to each sanctified and enno- 
bled mind. 

I saw not what I had looked to see — a Temple 
corresponding in dimensions and in splendor with 
the city of crystal and gold on which I gazed, I 
saw no gorgeous pile of sapphire and rubies 
towering above the rest, with the nameless Name 
emblazoned on its front ; — but I saw a vision more 
sublime — Jehovah the center of light, of glory, 
and of praise ; — where should have been the Tem- 
ple, was His Throne, and where the Holy of 
Holies, the Holy One Himself revealed alike to 
all. I saw no Temple therein ; for the Lord God 
Almighty and the Lamb are the Temple of it ! 

What a view does this representation of Heaven 
suggest of the capacity and the destiny of the 
sanctified soul ! The soul of man was made in the 
image of God that it might glorify him and enjoy 
him forever. But it has fallen from that original 
blessedness by yielding to the desires of the flesh ; 
by suffering the body, made to be the instrument 



. SPIRITUALITY OF HEAVEN. 179 

of its will, to become its master; by giving to the 
sensual and the earthly predominance over the 
spiritual and the heavenly. Yet from this degra- 
dation it has been redeemed ; — the work of sin 
effaced ; the germ of a higher life implanted by 
the divine Spirit, and in the progress of this life 
it shall recover its lost character and gain its ex- 
alted destiny. That destiny is, to become a par- 
taker of the divine nature ; — to dwell in God's 
presence and share God's blessedness forever. In 
comparison with this all earthly good is vanity. 
To secure this consummation for the soul of man, 
all the dispensations of Providence and of Grace 
have been ordained. The sacrifices of the ancient 
dispensation and the ordinances of the new, the 
Temple with its solemn and imposing rites, and 
the house of prayer with its simple, spiritual wor- 
ship, priests and prophets, apostles and teachers, 
all these, yea and the work of redemption itself, 
have been but the scaffolding by which the soul 
might mount to its own place in the heaven of 
God. There it shall expand forever in a life de- 
rived from Him who is all in all. No need there 
of temple or of priesthood, where the glorified 
spirit rests in the bosom of its Maker ; sun, moon 



180 STRAY MEDITATION'S. 

and stars, shall be thrown aside as smoldering ta- 
pers in the light of day; freed from this dull, 
sluggish body, — nay, I will not put dishonor upon 
God's workmanship, though marred by sin — but 
how refined and elevated shall the soul have be- 
come when it shall no more need this body with 
its delicate organism and its exquisite sensations, 
the eye to drink in the beauty of color and the 
ear the sweetness of sound, but rising above the 
highest frame of enjoyment known in connection 
with this physical world, it shall be the more 
joyous and elastic and blessed, because disencum- 
bered of the body and left to its own expansion ! 
Truly as saith Augustin, " There is but one object 
greater than the soul and that is its Creator." And 
the soul's greatness shall expand evermore as it 
shall be filled with all the fullness of God. 

How important then is it that we should here 
cultivate and develop the spiritual part of our na- 
ture, as a preparation for the heavenly state. Each 
person has a soul capable of that infinite expan- 
sion in the presence of God. Is it for this that I 
am training mine ? Do I prize the seasons of de- 
votion and the means of grace which I now enjoy, 
or might enjoy, as a preparation for heaven? It 



SPIRITUALITY OF HEAVEN. 181 

is by cultivating the s{)iritual in distinction from 
tlie sensuous, by exercising the heart in pure de- 
votion, that I shall be fitted through grace for a 
worship and a communion where there is no temple. 
It is by loving and serving God, and by honoring 
and trusting Christ, that I may obtain a relish and 
a fitness for a world in which all light, all glory, 
and all joy proceed from the Lord God Almighty 
and the Lamb. 

They only who take supreme delight in spiritual 
worship, in prayer and praise and communion with 
God, can have a well-founded hope of heaven, or 
possess any congenialty for that world. The hum- 
ble, devout, prayerful Christian, who walks by 
faith and feeds on heavenly truth, will find him- 
self at home in the employments of the celestial 
city. Glorious is the prospect before such a 
mind. 

But in contrast with this the reflection forces 
itself upon the reflecting mind, that those who 
have no true religion of heart, but who live to 
gratify their carnal nature, or in the pursuit of 
mere knowledge or fame, can have no place in 
heaven. They must be shut out by the law of 
nature as well as by the fiat of God. Heaven is a 
9 



182 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

state — a condition of pure spirituality — for which 
such have no fitness. The heaven of the Indian, 
with its hunting-grounds, its war-dances and its 
drinking-horns ; the heaven of Mahomet, with its 
harems and houris, a heaven of sensual delight ; 
the heaven of the infidel and the sensualist, where 
carnality reigns ; even the cold speculative heaven 
of the philosopher, — what are these as the desti- 
nation of the soul of man made in the image of 
God ? There is but one heaven in the universe, 
and that is a heaven of pure spiritual delight, of 
lofty, unending devotion. For that heaven, they 
who love this world and seek its vain delights, 
they who live for the pleasures of earth and sense, 
for that heaven such have no fitness, and for such 
that heaven has no place. There shall enter into 
it nothing that defileth. They who are lovers of 
pleasure more than lovers of God, shall not enter 
into that city which God irradiates and sanctifies 
with his presence. While all is light and blessed- 
ness there, with them shall be utter darkness and 
eternal woe. 



THE RESURRECTION. 183 



$ju %nntttttht. 

I CANNOT conceive liow any person who has 
ever lost a friend can argue against the doc- 
trine of the resurrection, or doubt that this doc- 
trine as revealed in the New Testament is to be 
understood according to the literal import of the 
terms in which it is expressed. The doctrine 
commends itself so warmly to the tenderest sym- 
pathies and affections of the heart, that one must 
say of it as Socrates said of the immortality of 
the soul, " Let me believe it ; for if true, it is bet- 
ter that I should believe it ; and if false, it can do 
me no harm, and I shall have derived much com- 
fort from it." Yes, I will believe it. I know, 
indeed, all that physiology and chemistry have 
urged against it ; I know all the alleged physical 
impossibilities in the case ; I know the skeptical 
objection so elaborately drawn out, from the dis- 



184 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

solution of the particles of matter and their re- 
absorption into other forms ; I know the impossi- 
bility of conceiving how the dead shall be raised 
up ; and yet / believe in the resurrection of the 
dead; my faith receives the revealed fact, my 
heart rejoices in it. 

How peculiar is the comfort that this doctrine 
brings when death has withdrawn the visible 
presence of a Christian friend. The soul of that 
friend is with the Lord, and with the holy and 
the blessed in his kingdom. I must not think of 
that friend as in the grave, cold, unconscious, 
perishing beneath the sod, but as living to God 
in a nobler, purer life ; and yet I cannot relin- 
quish my hold upon that form in life so beautiful, 
that was ever to me the presence, the personality, 
the expression of that friend ; I cannot make this 
to seem merely as other insensate matter ; I can- 
not believe that this shall henceforth be to the 
soul that has forsaken it like any other portion of 
the material creation; I cannot persuade myself 
that the preservation of this sacred dust is a tribute 
of Memory only, and not also a prophecy of Hope. 
Thou shalt wake from this sleep ; I shall meet 
thee again ; I shall know thee again. It cannot 



TITE RESURRECTION". 185 

be that two beings so closely interlinked in thought 
and feeling, in sympathy and affection, in hopes, 
and joys, and sorrows, in all the experiences of 
this life, and having the like precious faith in 
Jesus for the life to come, shall not hereafter be 
to each other what they can severally be to no 
other created being. And now when I hear that 
voice, sublime and mighty, yet tender and sooth- 
ing, "I am the resurrection and the life ; lie that be- 
lieveth in me, though he icere dead, yet shall he live" 
shall I not believe it, shall I not rejoice in it? I 
bless thee, Saviour, for that word. 

He whose power is infinite might have made 
his children supremely blessed as pure spirits, 
without corporeity, — though this passes present 
comprehension,' — or he might have endowed them 
with other forms, and still have given them the 
capacity of mutual recognition. But he has de- 
termined to reanimate and to glorify these same 
bodies, partly as a demonstration of his dominion 
over sin and death, partly as a token of perpetual 
brotherhood between Himself and his Eedeemed, 
and partly also in condescension to our human 
sympathies, that he might here soothe our sorrow- 
ing hearts, and that he might there augment our 



186 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

joy by social sympathy and communion. The 
raising of the dead, is continually set forth as the 
crowning act of the Eedeemer's power and the 
consummation of his work. How often does this 
thought recur in the memorable sixth chapter of 
John, where Jesus unfolds the spiritual import 
and the eternal grandeur of his mission in con- 
trast with the sensuous expectations of the Jews : 
" This is the will of him that sent me, that every 
one who seeth the Son, and believeth in him, may 
have everlasting life ; and I zvill raise him up at 
the last day" "No man can come to me, except 
the Father which hath sent me draw him ; and / 
will raise him up at the last day? 1 " Whoso eateth 
my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal 
life ; and / zvill raise him ip at the last day." How 
tender and beautiful those w r ords of consolation to 
Martha, even in the remote reference in which she 
understood them, " Thy brother shall rise again? 1 
How sublime the movement of that dithyrambic 
of faith in which the Apostle almost dramatizes 
the resurrection scene ; — the shout of the angelic 
host; the pomp of the descending throne; the 
gorgeous panoply of clouds; the voice of the 
archangel louder than seven thunders ; the trump 



THE RESURRECTION . 187 

of God — whose mighty summons wakes the dead ; 
the dead in Christ uprising and in dense serried 
columns ascending as the van of his triumphant 
army to where troops of angels open before his 
throne; the living in Christ, by some supernat- 
ural impulse, "caught up together with them," 
their myriad ranks closing upon the hosts of the 
resurrection as they are upborne in mid-heaven 
to meet their descending; Lord. Well might he 
say, " Sorrow not for them that are asleep. For 
if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even 
so them which sleep in Jesus will God bring with 
him. Wherefore exhort and comfort one another 
with these words n — words that stir the soul 
like a trumpet, and kindle it with an unearthly 
fire. 

"I believe in the resurrection of the dead.' 7 
He that hath promised is able to perform it. Xo 
speculation, no science, shall rob me of this pre- 
cious hope. Who can demonstrate that the es- 
sential germ of this corporeal existence is destroyed 
by death, and cannot be made to bloom upward 
from the dust and to receive again its spiritual 
life? "Thou heedless man! That which thou 
sowest is not quickened, does not germinate, un- 



188 STEAY MEDITATIONS. 

less it die. And that which, thou so west is not the 
identical form that shall shoot upward from the 
seed and shall be gathered at the harvest ; — it is 
mere grain — whether wheat or other grain ; but 
God by the ordinances of nature hath assigned to 
each seed its own body, to each germ its appropri- 
ate development, so that wheat produces wheat, 
and every seed after its kind. So also is the re- 
surrection of the dead." 

" Unless a grain of wheat fall into the ground 
and die, it abideth alone, — but if it die, it bringeth 
forth much fruit. The perishing of the seed corn 
is not only no difficulty, but is an essential condi- 
tion of the germination of the new body. Cut 
the seed or the bulb, and there to the eye of sci- 
ence the fair form of the perfect plant is distinctly 
traced ; and so, to the eye of God, in the corrupt- 
ible seed of the human frame may be enveloped 
the germ of the immortal and spiritual body. If 
we had no experience of those delicate and splen- 
did forms springing, in the freshness of their glory, 
from the bosom of decay, skej3ticism, no doubt, 
would be ready to interpose its rash fiat of impos- 
sibility; and because we have only experience of 
the planting of the mortal germ of humanity, and 



THE RESURRECTION. 189 

have not seen the wondrous bursting into life of 
the celestial body, shall we disregard the analogies 
by which God would aid our faith, and fall under 
the Apostle's charge of having a mind without 
spiritual perception, and slow to learn ? l O man 
without understanding, that which thou sowest is 
not quickened except it die. 7 And then, as to the 
second objection, of how can this human frame 
become accommodated to a spiritual and imperish- 
able life, the same analogy suggests an answer : 
4 That which thou sowest, thou sowest not the 
body that shall be, but bare gram ; — but God giveth 
it a body as it hath pleased him, — and to every seed 
its own body. 1 A root, a seed, is dropped into the 
earth, and from it the chemistry of God educes 
the loveliest forms, the most delicate tints and 
odors, the most ethereal and spiritual beauty. 
Follow the analogy : — and if such are the new 
bodies that God gives to the seeds of unconscious 
matter, and to the spring-times of earth, — what 
may be the glory of the spiritual body from a seed 
that is now an organism for the souls of his chil- 
dren, and whose spring-time is reserved for the 
celestial world ? Nor are we confined in our con- 
ceptions of that spiritual body by our present ex- 



190 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

perience of organized existences; for there are 
bodies terrestrial, and bodies celestial, — and as 
much, as the glory of the one transcends the glory 
of the other, may our resurrection body transcend 
the imperfect seed of our earthly frame. 'The 
glory of the terrestrial is one, and the glory of the 
celestial is another. So also is the resurrection of 
the dead. It is sown in corruption ; it is raised 
in incorruption : it is sown in dishonor ; it is 
raised in glory : it is sown in weakness ; it is raised 
in power : it is sown a natural body ; it is raised 
a spiritual body.' The natural body is an organ- 
ism fitted for the development and action of the 
animal man: the spiritual body is an organism 
fitted for the development and action of the spir- 
itual nature ; and the spiritual body holds to the 
natural body a relation, which is emblemed by 
that which, the most glorious of nature's forms 
bears to the seed from which it springs." — J. H. 
Thorn. 

This doctrine of the resurrection makes the re- 
alities of eternity the more palpable and tangible. 
We cannot comprehend pure spirit. We know 
almost nothing of its nature and its properties ex- 
cept by negatives, — by contrasting it with matter ; 



THE RESURRECTION. 191 

we know nothing of its existence — consciousness 
apart — except through its effects. We believe 
that God is a pure Spirit and an Infinite Spirit ; 
but we can hardly conceive of a finite created 
spirit, without supposing it to have some outward 
form, some visible substance, and some definite 
locality. Hence some Christian philosophers, — 
like Origen and Cudworth, after Plato — have 
supposed that immediately after death, the spirit 
is furnished with a form adapted to its new sphere 
of action — a form which distinguishes it, which 
makes it perceptible to others, and which qualifies 
it to act in its new condition ; and that when the 
new earth shall be fitted up for the saints, they 
will require a new adaption for it, and will lay 
aside their ethereal shapes for spiritual bodies, de- 
veloped from the germ or seed of the old, and 
fashioned like to Christ's glorious body. But what- 
ever may be true of the intermediate state, con- 
cerning which Revelation is chiefly silent, I know 
that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at 
the latter day upon the earth. And though this body 
be destroyed, yet m my flesh shall I see God. Mar- 
velous as will be the transition at death and in the 
resurrection, I shall yet preserve my own identity, 



192 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

shall possess my own corporeity, and shall know 
the loved companions"~of my earthly pilgrimage. 
Blessed be God for the doctrine of the resurrec- 
tion, that so clothes the unseen world with visibil- 
ity, and fills it with the beautiful presence of those 
to whom even in their glorified appearance I shall 
not be a stranger. 

Thou God of peace, that broughtest again from 
the dead the Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of 
the sheep, remember my gentle, sleeping lamb, 
when thou gatherest the flock into thy fold. Thou 
Lord of life and glory, who didst rise again from 
the dead, and who wilt raise up them also that be- 
lieve, remember thou the precious dust I have 
garnered up for thee against thine appearing. Thou 
Lord of my life and my salvation, who didst die 
for me that I might live to thee, remember me 
when thou callest thine elect from the four winds 
of heaven. 

And now what wait I for ? Is not the whole 
future made secure ? Believing in Jesus and in 
the Eesurrection, encompassed with the supernal 
glory of the cross and of the opened sepulcher, 
what more can heart desire ? 



THE RESURRECTION. 193 

Up, then, my soul, and on — 

Thou mayst not linger here ; 

Life's duty must be done 

Though death, the somber bier, 
The op'ning tomb 
That veils thy heart's young love in midnight gloom, 
Demand of thee the ever-flowing tear. 

Up, up, my soul, and on — 

Thou mayst not linger here, 

Nor toil nor conflict shun 

Though hedged about with fear. 
Thine be the care 
Each duty to fulfill, each burden share ; 
Up, for the coming of thy Lord is near ! 

Up, up, my soul, and on — 

Thou mayst not linger here. 

Life's vict'ry must be won, 

Death's conflict draweth near. 
And from above 
They welcome thee — they of thy heart's young love 
Are hov'ring nigh thy dreary way to cheer. 

Up, up, my soul, and on — 

Thou mayst not linger here ; 

Life's race will quick be run, 

Heaven's plaudit greet thine ear. 
Linger no more 
Tearful and sad beside the grave's dark door; 
Up, plume thy flight for the celestial sphere. 



194 STBAY MEDITATIONS. 



€fy StraliittnM? $ nwmiw. 

[A SERIES OF MEDITATIONS UPON ROMANS VIII. 35., SEQ.] 

THERE is one thing of which I cannot be de- 
prived. 

Earthly possessions, be they never so secure, I 
may not be able to retain. The elements of na- 
ture, fire, lightning, tempest, flood, — the craft or 
violence of men, do but conspire against these 
and they are gone : nay, my own rash adventure 
or misplaced confidence may put these forever be- 
yond my control. 

Reputation, though guarded with a virgin care, 
may receive the taint of calumny, or pass under 
the eclipse of suspicion : naj^, my own weakness 
or my own pride may bring down with dishonor 
the good name of years. 

Health, though grounded on a physical constitu- 



THE INALIENABLE POSSESSION. 195 

tion, formed and disciplined for endurance, spark- 
ling in the lustrous eye, blushing on the radiant 
cheek, beating in the calm, even, silken pulse, that, 
however fresh and vigorous, tells not the minutes of 
life with the sharp click of the tense w r ire, but 
with the soft breathing of the JSolianharp, health, — 
the freshness of youth, the vigor of manhood, 
may wither in an hour. I go forth in the con- 
sciousness of strength, in the flush and pride of 
manly vigor ; the angel of the Pestilence passes 
by, or the fierce winds of winter sweep over me, 
and " I am gone like the shadow when it decli- 
ned." 

Intellectual wealth I may have gathered by the 
slow r and careful toil of years, by the discipline of 
schools and the companionship of books and men, 
by solitary musing and by foreign travels ; the 
garnered treasures of the past, in libraries, in 
monuments, in institutions, in thoughts perennial 
as the soul, may all be mine, and yet a fevered 
brain, a Eeason shattered by disease or crushed 
beneath the very accumulation of its spoils, may 
leave me beggared of all this wealth — to drivel on 
in stolid penury. 

The richer wealth of affection may be mine. My 



196 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

heart may have its precious fruits culled from the 
fields of friendship, of beauty, and of love, or 
growing out of itself by those strange laws whereby 
Love is evermore expanding to embrace new ob- 
jects while yet it clings more firmly to the old, 
and in my sacred home may be a little world, 
which, were all the world beside, yea and all other 
worlds annihilated, is world enough for me ; — a 
world that has its own sun and stars, its bright 
and genial skies, its balmy atmosphere, its sunlit 
heights, its sweet and shadowy repose, its flowery 
meads, its luscious fruits, its purling streams, 
and its great unfathomed, unbroken sea of blessed- 
ness ; — and yet this world, to me so ample and so 
lovely, the finger-touch of Death may cover with 
a pall of blackness, "Lover and friend may 
be put far from me, and mine acquaintance into 
darkness ;" and I be left like the lone wounded 
bird of spring that sees its mates pluming their 
wings for a heavenward flight, while it lies crip- 
pled and bleeding in the forsaken nest. 

Thus in still, meditative hours, do I ponder the 
uncertainty and the emptiness of earthly joys, 
till in the vast vacuity around the solid globe dis- 
solves, and sun and stars vanish away. 



THE INALIENABLE POSSESSION. 197 

And is there then nothing permanent, nothing 
sure ? Can my heart nowhere lean with safety 
and with confidence? Blessed be God there 
is a resting place. There is one thing of which 
I cannot he deprived. I have an inalienable 
possession — I know that I have in reversion 
an inheritance that is incorruptible and undefiled 
and that fadeth not away ; — this I hold by grant 
from my Father through Christ my elder brother, 
and in the lively hope of this I might well en- 
dure with patience the privation of earthly good ; 
but I am not only an heir, I am a possessor, I 
have not only an inheritance but a possession, 
that cannot be alienated by calamity, or change, 
or time, or death. "Who shall separate me 
from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or 
distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, 
or peril, or sword ? Nay in all these things we 
are more than conquerors, through him that 
loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, 
nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, 
nor things present, nor things to come, nor 
height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall 
be able to separate me from the love of God 
which is in Christ Jesus my Lord." 



198 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

A personal interest in the love of Christ is to 
the believer an inalienable possession. Christ is 
mine and I am his. Of earthly limitation is the 
sentiment, 

" There is no union here of hearts, 
That finds not here an end." 

This vital heart-union of Christ with the soul 
that he has redeemed and has blessed with his 
love, shall never find an end ; it knows no sep- 
aration, no cessation, no change. Who shall 
separate me from the love of Christ? 

This mighty pyramid of faith by whose granite 
steps overlaid with gold we mount to celestial 
glory, is based upon the eternal love of Christ. 
The interpreter pauses before it in awe. He 
cannot measure its vastness; he cannot specify 
its details ; it is the one grand comprehensive 
conception of all created things heaped together 
beneath the victorious feet of the ascending saint 
upborne by the unchanging love of his Eedeemer. 
All the gathered forces of the universe, all the 
opposites of created good and created ill, may 
combine for the destruction of this one humble, 



THE INALIENABLE POSSESSION. 199 

believing soul that Jesus loves — they shall be 
vanquished by an easy victory ; nay, angels, prin- 
cipalities and powers, the mighty agencies of the 
unseen world, may heap mountain upon mountain 
to crush this believing soul, but, like Pelion piled 
on Ossa in the war of giants with the gods, these 
shall but pave its triumphant way to the upper 
glory. 

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ ? 
" Here is the very summit of the mount of con- 
fidence, whence the believer looks down upon his 
enemies as powerless, and forward and upward 
with full assurance of a final and abundant tri- 
umph. No one can accuse, no one can condemn, no 
one can separate us from the love of Christ. This 
last assurance gives permanency to the other two. 
The Jove of Christ is Christ's love toward us and 

not ours toward him the great love of God 

toward us as manifested in the gift of his Son, and 
the love of Christ as exhibited in his dying, rising, 
and interceding for us. This love, so great, is 
unchangeable. It is no ground of confidence to 
assert or even to feel that we will never forsake 
Christ, but it is the strongest ground of assurance 
to be convinced that his love will never change . . . 



200 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

The Apostle heaps words together in the effort to 
set forth fully the absolute inability of all created 
things, separately or united, to frustrate the pur- 
pose of God, or to turn away his love from those 

whom he has determined to save And as if 

to prevent despondency having the possibility of 
a foothold, although the preceding enumeration 
had been so minute, in the last clause he adds this 
all-comprehending specification, no created thing 
shall be able to separate us from the love of 
God."* " Salvation," says Olshausen in his glow- 
ing comment on this passage, " Salvation would 
be the most uncertain of all uncertain things if it 
rested not on the objective act of God in Christ, 
but on the wavering subjectivity [the changeful 
inward frames and states] of man. Only by this 
its objectivity [its outward substantive existence 
by the act of God] is the gospel a true glad tidings, 
which nothing can remove; even unbelief can 
merely refuse it. 

" This profound and colossal thought, which in- 
deed the divine mind alone could generate and 
reveal to men, inspires the Apostle to a dythyram- 

* Hodge. 



Christ's love spontaneous. 201 

bic of faith, which even in a purely formal view, 
must be acknowledged to equal any of the most 
sublime creations of human language ; wherefore 
even Longinus — the Athenian rhetorician — ranks 
the Apostle with the greatest orators. The absolute 
power of God makes everything earthly vanish : 
1 if God be for man, what can be against him V 
But the greatest possible act of God's love is the 
giving up of his Son ; in that all else which can 
be thought and wished for lies inclosed." 

Let me meditate awhile upon the characteris- 
tics of this surpassing love, a love that inspires 
such confidence, and that works out for the believer 
such glorious results. 

i. — Christ's love is spontaneous. 

The love of Christ is a self-originated affection. 
There was nothing worthy of love in man that 
called it forth. There was nothing in the charac- 
ter of man that could excite complacency in the 
mind of the Infinite Eedeemer. When this love 
toward man began, there were no ties of race and 
kindred, there was no sj^mpathy of nature, there 
was no fellowship of temptations and sufferings 



202 STEAY MEDITATIONS. 

and death, to call it into exercise. These all were 
consequent upon that love — the out-goings of its 
infinite beneficence, the reach, the yearnings of its 
own proper activity. We were mere creatures — 
made indeed in the image of God — but of a 
lower nature than the angels, who though they 
sinned found no compassion, — for verily " He took 
not on him the nature of angels," he did not link 
himself to them in their ruin that he might link 
them to him in his glory, but "he took on him the 
seed of Abraham*" "What was there in us more 
than in angels fallen, to excite his pity and call 
forth his love? We were but creatures of a 
lower grade ; and we were sinners — dead in tres- 
passes and sins. As to anything on our part the 
love of Christ for us is altogether free and unde- 
served. "Herein is love, not that we loved God, 
but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the 
propitiation for our sins. After that the kindness 
and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, 
not by works of righteousness which we have 
done, but according to his mercy he saved us." 
The first act of Christ's love for us was an act of 
compassion, the heaving pity of his infinite soul. 
Naught was there in us to admire, naught to es- 



Christ's love eternal. 203 

teem, naught to approve, naught even to tolerate. 
Since then the love of Christ for us originated in 
his own nature, independent of any worthiness in 
us, independent also of any motive or influence 
from created beings, how should the power or the 
machinations of creatures be able to separate us 
from that love ? 



n. — Christ's love eternal. 

The love of Christ is an eternal love. In the 
glory which he had with the Father before the 
world was, Christ who made the world, bestowed 
his love upon each and every individual of our 
race who through all time should be called of his 
Father into his kingdom. " Who hath saved us, 
and called us with an holy calling, not according 
to our works, but according to his own purpose 
and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus 
before the world began." * He by whom and for 
whom all things were created, who is before all 
things and by whom all things consist, he who 
gave us being, foresaw our fall and planned our 
redemption, and fixed on us his own particular 
love, before he launched the worlds on their or- 



204 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

bits. And now shall this love, kindled in eternity, 
be quenched in time ? What created power shall 
here dam up the stream of mighty love that has 
already flowed across the chasm of eternity, and 
through the unbroken ages of the past? 

As the silvery beam that from hitherto impene- 
trable depths for the first time glances upon the 
glass of the astronomer, comes not from a new- 
created star, but has traversed the ages infinite 
and the spaces infinite on its tireless wing to visit 
mortals with new revelations of the eternal power 
and glory, so the love that for the first time beams 
athwart the consciousness of the regenerated soul 
and scatters its gloom, is not a love then newly 
born, but only a new revelation of a love that 
has flowed across the infinite as;es toward this 
conjunction with its selected object. • And who 
shall separate that soul from the love of Christ ? 

in. — Christ's love omnipotent. 

The love of Christ is the love of a being who 
is able to fulfill all the purposes of that love. 
Christ is omnipotent ; ?nd his almighty power is 
moved and guided by his infinite love. Nay, more 



ciikist's love omnipotent. 205 

than this ; not only is the word Almighty — the 
Creator and the Lord of all — but Christ the Ee- 
deemer, Christ the Mediator, Christ the head of 
the Church, has all power in heaven and in earth 
for the preservation of his Church. "He is the 
head of the body, the Church, and in him dwelleth 
all the fullness of the Godhead bodily ; and ye are 
plete in him, which is the head of all j)rinci- 
pality and power." Christ is able to execute all 
the purposes of his love. This thought of the 
ability of Christ is continually recurring in the 
Apostolic writings, to strengthen the believer's 
confidence. Sometimes it is the song of triumph ; — 
" to him that is able to do exceeding abundantly 
above all that we ask or think, according to the 
power that worketh in us, — to him be glory in the 
Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world 
without end." Sometimes it is the ground of 
promise ; as where the assurance of a glorious re- 
surrection and a blissful immortality is rested on 
the fact that Christ by his own energy is " able to 
subdue all things to himself." Sometimes it is 
the solid foundation of a personal hope. "I 
know whom I have believed, and am persuaded 

that he is able to keep that which I have commit- 
10 



206 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

ted to him against that day." Sometimes it im- 
parts confidence in prayer : u He is able to succor 
them that are tempted ;" he is able also " to save 
them to the uttermost that come to God by him, 
seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for 
them/' And again it is the theme of exulting 
doxology ; " To him that is able to keep you from 
falling and to present you faultless before the pres- 
ence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only 
wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, do- 
minion and power, both now and ever. Amen." 
He who loves us is able to keep us. The 
strongest earthly love cannot shield us from 
calamity, from temptation, from disease, from 
death. Often the heart in whose every pulse and 
every fiber lives the dear object of affection, 
yearns with unutterable desire, with tears and 
groans and agony, to deliver that object from 
present or impending ill. But here the greatest 
strength of human love is also its greatest weak- 
ness. But Christ is able to do all that his infinite 
love hath desired and purposed for our welfare. 
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ ? 
All that the Apostle nas here enumerated, even 
the angels and principalities and powers of dark- 



Christ's love immutable. 207 

ness that he challenges from the unseen world, are 
but created things subject to the control of him 
who doeth all things according to the counsel of 
his own will. " The whole world, indeed, with 
all its powers, its enticements, and its threatenings, 
is against the believer; but what is the world 
against God, who does what He will with its pow- 
ers in heaven and on earth !" What mere 
created power shall separate us from the love of 
an Almighty Saviour ? 

iv. — Christ's love immutable. 

The love of Christ is the love of an unchange - 
able being. Earthly friends change in their 
relative affection toward us, or in their nearness 
to us, or they themselves are changed and pass 
away. But " Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, 
to-day, and forever ;" the same in his nature, his 
attributes, his counsels, his affections, and his re- 
lations toward us. " This man hath an unchange- 
able priesthood." " Thou, Lord, in the beginning 
hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the 
heavens are the work of thine hands. They 
shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all 



208 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

shall wax old as doth a garment ; and as a vesture 
shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be 
changed ; but thou art the same, and thy years 
shall not fail." "Lo, I am with you alway, even 
to the end of the world." To him who knoweth 
all things, no new contingency can arise to affect 
his plans ; to him who hath all power, no unex- 
pected obstacle can impede his will. Christ 
changeth not, he will not deny himself, and since 
he hath loved us from the beginning, who shall 
separate us from his love ? 

v. — Christ's love peculiar. 

The love of Christ is a personal and particular 
affection. It is not the love of Christ toward 
the world at large that is here intended, not his 
general compassion toward sinners and his gen- 
eral benevolence as evinced by his mission and 
sacrifice, but it is his particular love for them 
that are his. " The Lord knoweth them that are 
his;" they are his own, their names are written 
in his book of life. When our Lord was about 
to leave his disciples, immediately before the 
agony of the garden and the cross, he commend- 



C IT R I S T ' S LOVE PECULIAR. 209 

ed them to God in prayer, and said, " Of tliem 
wliicli tliou gavest me, have I lost none. Those 
that thou, gavest me I have kept, and none of 
them is lost, though the son of perdition is lost." 
He selected these his chosen as the objects of 
that prayer. " I pray for them ; I pray not 
for the world, but for them which thou has given 
me." Yet blessed be his name, he added, " nei- 
ther pray I for these alone ; but for them also 
which shall believe in me through their word." 

The invitations of Christ are personal, and his 
promises are personal and particular. They are 
given to individuals ; and he who complies there- 
with is thenceforth personally an object of Christ's 
special regard. u My sheep hear my voice, and I 
know them, and they follow me: and I give to 
them eternal life; and they shall never perish, 
neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. 
My Father which gave them me is greater than 
all ; and no man is able to pluck them out of my 
Father's hand. I and my Father are one." 

Since, therefore, from the foundation of the 
world Christ has chosen each believer as an object 
of his personal and particular love, — since this love 
is bestowed immediately upon its object by Christ 



210 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

himself, knowing who and what that object is, 
and taking it to his heart, — who shall separate us 
from the love of Christ ? 

vi. — Christ's love prescient. 

The love of Christ was manifested toward us 
with a foresight of all the difficulties which its 
exercise must encounter. Men ordinarily form 
friendships with little thought of the sacrifices 
that those friendships may involve. Sometimes a 
true and noble heart will bind itself to one who 
is struggling with adversity, and identify itself 
with his person and his cause when both are sink- 
ing, because it regards both as worthy of its con- 
fidence, and will testify that confidence before the 
world. But more commonly adversity scatters 
friends. Thev had committed themselves without a 
thought of danger, and are ready to retreat when 
the sound of danger comes. Even in those friend- 
ships where calamities are anticipated, the danger 
has not sufficient definiteness to give it presence and 
impression. In the nearest union of life it is known 
that sooner or later the tie must be sundered, but it 
cannot be anticipated upon which side the blow will 



Christ's love prescient. 211 

fall, and neither party, therefore, can drink before- 
hand the bitter cup ; and while this sacred partner- 
ship of affection is known to be a partnership of care 
and sorrow as well as of joy, yet hope evermore 
predominates, and sorrow never enters as a distinct 
element into the calculations of suck a union. It 
may be adverted to as an incident, it may obtrude its 
shadow upon the picture, but it is not laid down pal- 
pably in the plan. Nature and the highest wisdom 
forbid that it should be. Love does not launch 
her bark, wreathed with garlands and manned with 
laughing Hours, for seas of trouble — though when 
the storm comes it will be found that underneath, 
the gilded and flowery hull are ribs of oak and 
knees of iron. But here is a love that from the 
first foresaw the trials and the hindrances to its 
own expression, and yet in view of these sought 
that expression without w r avering. This love 
launched itself into the midst of the storm. It 
traversed a sea of flood-. Christ knew that his 
love for us must bring him from heaven to earth, 
from the throne to the manger, from complete di- 
vinity to weak humanity, from joy and glory to 
shame and suffering, from life to death, from the 
crown to the cross; and yet he loved — loved 



212 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

us notwithstanding all. Who then shall separate 
us from the love of Christ ? 

vii. — Christ's love victorious. 

The love of Christ has already encountered 
without faltering the highest obstacles to the ful- 
fillment of its purpose. "What enemy has the 
Apostle here enumerated that Christ has not al- 
ready in his own person met and overcome ? Trib- 
ulation ? " A man of sorrows and acquainted with 
grief." Distress? u His visage was marred more 
than any man, and his form more than the sons 
of men." Persecution? "He is despised and re- 
jected of men ;" " all they that see me laugh me to 
scorn, they shut out the light, they shake the 
head and say, Aha ! aha!" Famine or nakedness? 
" The son of man hath not where to lay his head." 
Peril? "Then the Pharisees went forth and 
straightway took counsel with the Herodians 
against him how they might destroy him ; and 
Jesus would not walk in Jewry because the Jews 
sought to kill him." Sword ? " He is brought as 
a lamb to the slaughter." Angels, principalities 
and powers? "Then was Jesus led into the wil- 



Christ's love complete. 218 

derness being forty days tempted of the devil." 
" The prince of this world cometli and hath 
nothing in me." Death? " Then they crucified 
him between two malefactors." Every force of 
evil has already been expended in the vain at- 
tempt to wrest from the embrace of Christ the 
souls he came to save. This love while here in- 
carnate upon earth, doing its own work, consum- 
mating its eternal plan, was assailed by the com- 
bined malice of earth and hell, but vanquished 
all. It burned with so intense a flame that many 
waters — even the floods of anguish and of horror 
that rolled over the Son of God as he lay pros- 
trate in the garden — could not quench it, and can 
anything now extinguish it? Satan tried his arts 
in vain ; Death thought to extinguish this love in 
his icy grasp, and to seal it in the sepulcher — but 
no, it rose and triumphed over all What then 
remains to separate us from the love of Christ ? 

viii. — Christ's love complete. 

The love of Christ was bestowed upon us with 
a view to its consummation over every obstacle in 
the final salvation of its object. How affecting is 



214 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

the exhibition made by John of the fidelity of 
the Saviour's love, when he records that before 
the feast of the passover, u When Jesus knew 
that his hour was come, that he should depart out 
of this world unto the Father, having loved his 
own which w r ere in the world, he loved them to 
the end." And as the hours of darkness were 
closing in about his own soul, he devoted himself 
to the work of consoling his disciples and of per- 
fecting their faith. He came to seek and to save 
that which was lost, and he w r ould not leave his 
work unfinished. To what intent is all this love 
of Christ — eternal and unchanging — a love that 
brought him to the humiliation of Bethlehem, 
and to the bloody baptism of Gethsemane and of 
Calvary ? Was it to make a general expression 
of good-will toward men, and a general offer of 
pardon, an experiment in moral government by 
grace ? Was it not, above all this, to secure the 
personal salvation of every individual to whom 
by faith his atoning blood should be efficaciously ap- 
plied? "He which hath begun a good work in 
you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. 
You hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh 
through death to present you holy, and unblame- 



able, and unreprovable in his Bight; to present 
you faultless before the presence of his glory with 
exceeding joy.'' 

This then is the very intent of all Christ's love 
for us ; — that he may secure our personal salvation 
in his father's kingdom. That kingdom was pre- 
pared for us from the foundation of the world, 
and shall anything now deprive us of our inheri- 
tance ? Will he not complete the work he has 
begun, and upon which he has already bestowed 
so much thought, and labor, and suffering ? Since 
Christ has undertaken our personal salvation, and 
has proposed this to himself as the object of his 
everlasting love — who shall separate us from the 
love of Christ ? 



Such are the characteristics of this love upon 
which the believer reposes his confidence. It is a 
self-originated love ; it is an eternal love ; it is an 
omnipotent love ; it is an unchanging love ; it is 
a personal and particular love ; it is a love that 
has counted the cost ; it is a love that has endured 
for us the pains of death ; it is a love that never 
loses sight of its object, and that will be satisfied 
only with the complete and eternal blessedness of 
that object in heaven. Upon this love the be- 



216 STKAY MEDITATIONS. 

liever reposes with unwavering confidence. It is 
liis present and inalienable possession; the one 
thing — the only thing of which he cannot be de- 
prived, but having which he wants no more. Who 
shall separate us from the love of Christ ? 

ix. — cheist's love all-sustaining. 

What are the workings of the love of Christ 
toward the believer in his personal experience ? 
Sometimes it altogether shields him from calam- 
ity. The temporal promises of the Old Testament 
are not wholly void under the New. Sometimes 
the promise of the Psalmist in its letter as well as 
in its spirit is now fulfilled : " Because thou hast 
made the Lord which is my refuge, even the Most 
High thy habitation, there shall no evil befall 
thee ; neither shall any plague come nigh thy 
dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge 
over thee to keep thee in all thy ways," This 
merciful deliverance was vouchsafed to the Jewish 
Christians of the first century, who all escaped 
from the destruction of Jerusalem in which thou- 
sands of their countrymen were slain. But the 
language of the Apostle supposes that trials, per- 



Christ's love all-sustaining. 217 

secutions, and afflictions do actually come, as for 
the most part they do come to all believers, and 
often in connection with their Christian profession. 
A natural tendency of such trials would be to be- 
get despondency and a suspicion of the with- 
drawal of Christ's love. But in the very trial the 
love of Christ manifests itself to the believer, 
working out its gracious design. It brings to 
him a view of the presence of Christ and of his 
sustaining grace that is altogether unwonted in 
his seasons of quiet and prosperity, and opens to 
his soul the joy and strength of his Eedeemer. 
Upon this point Dr. Chalmers has some thoughts 
that are eminently worthy of remembrance. " The 
way in which God often manifests His protecting 
and fatherly care of us, is, not by obtaining for 
us the safety of a flight ; but, better and nobler 
than this, the triumph of a victory. In plainer 
words, He may neither withdraw the calamity 
from us, nor us from the calamity ; but, leaving 
it to bear with full weight upon our spirits, He 
pours a strength into our spirits which enables 
them to bear up under it. It is in this way fre- 
quently, that He makes good the promise of not 
suffering us to be tried beyond what we are able 



218 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

to bear. He does not lighten the suffering, but 
He adds to the strength ; and, as it were, cradles 
us, by the education of a severe spiritual disci- 
pline into a state of spiritual maturity. After 
that the Apostles had been threatened by the Jew- 
ish rulers to desist from preaching, they did not 
pray that no more threats might be uttered, or 
that the power of executing their menaces should 
be taken away. They did not pray for a deliver- 
ance from the outward trial ; but for a supply of 
inward resolution, that they might be upheld 
against it. c And now Lord, behold their threat- 
enings ; and grant unto thy servants that with all 
boldness they may speak thy word.' And so with 
Christians of all ages. They estimate the kind- 
ness of God towards them by His spiritual rather 
than by His temporal blessings. They count not 
that God has separated or withdrawn Himself be- 
cause His earthly comforts have abandoned them. 
The most distressing separation to them were to 
be abandoned by the aids of His grace. That 
they fell into suffering, were to them no indica- 
tion of His faded or expiring regard for them ; 
but, should they fall into sin, this were the sad 
and sorrowing evidence of an angry or of a with- 



PAUL AND CHRYSOSTOM. 219 

drawing God. When He puts some dark advers- 
ity to flight, this may prove that He has made 

them to be safe. But higher far when He dis- 

^ i 

charges this adversity upon them, and they come 
out, of erect and unhurt spirit, from the onset 
and the uproar of its violence — this proves that 
He maketh them to conquer, and to be more than 
conquerors. . . . Now a man is never overset, 
never plunges into irrecoverable despair, but on 
the giving way of that which he holds to be his 
main interest ; and hence, you will perceive, that 
the same visitation of calamity which should make 
one man feel that he is undone, might give to an- 
other a sense of noblest independence — in that he 
has met the poverty or pain with a spirit unhurt, 
if not bettered by the collision ; and that, in the 
triumph of a faith which looks onward and ahead 
of all that is visible, he can rise superior to the 
disaster and trample it beneath him." 

X. — PAUL AND CHRYSOSTOM. 

Examples of the sustaining power of Christ's 
love abound in the history of the Church. Her 
martyrolgy is full of them. The noble army of 



220 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

martyrs and confessors, from Stephen down to the 
latest victim of superstitious fear or inquisitorial 
revenge, do testify that nothing can separate the 
believing soul from the love of its Eedeemer ; that 
trials, instead of being evidences of the soul's 
abandonment by Christ often bring Christ to the 
soul in all the fullness of his love. Thus was it 
with Paul : "in labors abundant, in stripes above 
measure, in prisons frequent, in deaths oft, stoned, 
shipwrecked, in journeyings often, in perils of 
waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by the Jews, 
in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in 
perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in 
perils among false brethren, in weariness and 
painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and 
thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness." 
And yet he could say " We are troubled on every 
side, yet not distressed ; we are perplexed, but 
not in despair : persecuted, but not forsaken ; 
cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing 
about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, 
that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest 
in our body." And again he says, " I count all 
things but loss for the excellency of the knowl- 
edge of Christ Jesus my Lord : for whom I have 



PAUL AND CHRYSOSTOM. 221 



suffered the loss of all tilings and do count tliem 
but dung that I may win Christ." " The love of 
Christ constraineth us." The love of Christ was 
Paul's support in every conflict and his final vic- 
tory over death. 

Chrysostom, the pious and eloquent bishop of 
Constantinople, whose enemies — made such by 
his fidelity — succeeded in deposing him and driv- 
ing him into exile at the peril of his life, found 
ever his support in the same love of Christ. Thus 
in his parting address to his flock from whom this 
cruel edict drove him, he exclaims, " Many are 
the billows and severe the storm; but we are 
not afraid that we shall be overwhelmed ; for 
we stand on a rock. Let the sea rage ; it cannot 
loose the rock. Let the waves lift up themselves ; 
they cannot sink the ship of Jesus. What I 
pray you, should we fear? Death? To me to 
live is Christ, and to die is gain. Exile ? The 
earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. Con- 
fiscation of goods ? We brought nothing into the 
world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. 
The frightful things of this world I can easily 
contemn, and laugh at its good things. I dread 
not poverty ; I desire not wealth. I dread not 



222 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

death, nor do I pray for life except for your 
profit. 

"Do I encourage myself" lie adds, " in my own 
strength ? I have his written bond. That is my 
staff; that is my security; that is my tranquil 
haven. Should a world be in commotion, I possess 
his written bond. To him I read it. Those 
words are a wall to me and a security. What 
are those words? I am with you always even 
to the end of the world. Christ is with me. 
Whom shall I fear ? Should billows rise against 
me, and seas, and the wrath of rulers, all these 
things are lighter to me than a spider's web." 

On returning from exile, he said, "Driven 
away I blessed him, returning I bless him. Blessed 
be God who permitted us to depart ; blessed again 
be God, who has called us back. Blessed be God, 
who permits the storm ; blessed be God, who 
dissipates the storm and makes the calm. Are 
you in prosperity ? Bless God and prosperity 
continues. Are you in adversity? Bless God 
and adversity ends. Times vary ; but the mind 
should be the same. Neither should the calm un- 
nerve the generous purpose of the pilot, nor the 
storm overpower him." 



VICTORY OVER DEATH. 223 



XI. — VICTORY OVER DEATH. 

With this shield of faith the Christian is en- 
abled to quench all the fiery darts of the adversary. 
He is more than conqueror. Take the single ar- 
ticle of death. Christ's love does not deliver the 
believer from the physical process of dying, but 
it leaves him nothing more than this to endure. 
"0 death where is thy sting?" To some it is 
given to triumph over this last foe with signal 
demonstrations of celestial strength. So was it 
with Knox, with Payson, with Evarts, who shook 
the etherial spear and death affrighted fled and 
yielded up his prey. But blessed be God this vic- 
tory is not reserved alone for those who go up as in 
chariots of fire amid the clang of angel trumpets 
and in the blaze of heaven's opened gate. Often 
to some humble and patient sufferer, wasting by 
slow disease, shut in from all the world, shrinking 
not only from the inquisitive gaze of strangers but 
even from the anxious, sympathizing look of 
friends, communing ever with the Invisible rather 
than with the outward, — to such a one, all unknown 



224 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

to the great world, and shunning its publicity as the 
timid fawn shuns the open moor for the still waters 
and the quiet pastures of the forest shades — is 
given, not some rare ecstatic vision of the celes- 
tial, not last days and last words of exulting joy, 
but for many days and weeks and months, per- 
haps for years, through all the mockery of illusive 
hopes and all the sudden apparitions of the angel 
of death that ever hovers near, and through all 
the mysterious fluctuations of that subtle nervous 
fluid that neither intellect nor will controls, — is 
given a sweet serenity, a serenity that is never dis- 
turbed by one agitating apprehension of the 
closing scene, that meekly wills as God wills, and 
views death only as a passage into life. Here is 
something more than resignation; here is some- 
thing more than triumph. Hardly can that be 
called a victory where there is no conflict, where 
the enemy is calmly looked down without a strug- 
gle and overborne by the majesty of a faith ever 
present and ever self-possessed. Such a soul is 
more than a conqueror ; it has risen above the din 
of triumph to a sublime, and, paradoxical though 
it be — an intense tranquility — " the peace of God 
that passeth all understanding." Blessed be God 



CLOSING LESSONS. 225 

that tins experience is sometimes given to the 
humblest of his saints ; blessed not for their sakes 
only but for survivors ; for the eye that hath 
looked on this shall never after see aught of terror 
or of gloom in death. " Who shall separate us from 
the love of Christ ? Shall tribulation, or distress, 
or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peri], 
or sword? Nay, in all these things we are 
more THAN CONQUERORS through him that loved 
us." 



XII. — CLOSING LESSONS. 

The Christian should rather prepare to meet 
trials than seek to escape them. It is right indeed, 
to pray " Lead us not into temptation, but de- 
liver us from evil," and to use every reasonable 
precaution against calamity. But trials must come, 
and it is wiser and better to discipline the heart to 
meet them than to burden the imagination with 
devising means of escape. 



The only real strength in adversity comes from 
above. No earthly friends, no earthly resources 
can give real succor ; no [ plans or resolutions of 



226 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

my own can give deliverance or support ; no 
philosophy nor force of will can bear me up. 
There is but one real strength and consolation ; 
and that is the consciousness of a personal interest 
in the love of Christ as a present and an inalienable 
possession. Let me cherish this by a life of faith 
and by the daily evidences of piety. 



If I am Christ's I can have no cause of fear or 
anxiety in the universe. Nothing can by any 
possibility separate me from his love. " Who will 
harm you, if ye be followers of that which is 
good?" "Fear not little flock, for it is your 
father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." 



May no trial alienate my heart from Christ, or 
shake my trust in him : no trial of prosperity, — 
often the severest, — no trial of adversity. Noth- 
ing can change his love for me, and shall aught 
change my love for him ? Truly has it been said 
that " Man only has the sad prerogative of being 
able to draw himself away from Christ by unbelief, 
the mother of all sins" 



It is only through Christ and to those in Christ 



CLOSING LESSONS. 227 

that this wonderful sustaining love is given. He 
that is not of Christ, whose consciousness testifies 
that he knows nothing of Christ's personal love, 
has no real possession, no real good present or in 
prospect. All things are against him. The world 
may seem to be for him, but it is against him. 
It deludes him that it may destroy him. Satan 
promises to be for him and to give him a kingdom 
for his homage, but he is against him, and will 
ere long drop the garb of an angel of light and 
show himself the fiend he is. Death is against 
him ; oh how full of terror ! God is against him, 
in the dread majesty of his justice, in the penalty 
of his offended law. Christ himself is against 
him ; rejected by him and compelled to reject him 
in turn. Alas, poor, wretched, dying sinner, 
what can he do without the Saviour's love ? 



How blessed is the believer's possession, — the 
love of Christ. Would that I might realize its 
priceless worth. As saith John Owen, " Be not 
contented to have right notions of the love of 
Christ in your minds, unless you can attain a 
gracious taste of it in your hearts ; no more than 
you would be to see a feast or banquet richly pre- 
pared, and partake of nothing of it to your re- 



228 STRAY MEDITATIONS. 

freshment." that I might know the fullness of 
this love. The Apostle prayed for the Ephesians 
that " Christ might dwell in their hearts by faith ; 
that, being rooted and grounded in love, they 
might be able to comprehend with all saints, what 
is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height ; 
and to know the love of Christ, which, passeth 
knowledge, that they might be filled with all the 
fullness of Grod." Such shall ever be my petition 
at the throne of grace. And yet how little can I 
know on earth of the love of Christ. Oh for the 
perfect vision of that love in heaven, That is 
not the cry of a weary and desponding heart, 
made sick of earth by sorrow — " Come Lord Jesus, 
come quickly J 1 No, as the believing heart in some 
favored hour yearning for a higher knowledge 
and a clearer vision of his love, hears him say 
through the heavens opened to receive an ascend- 
ing saint, " Watch thou, labor, pray ; — behold, for 
thee also I come quickly, " oh then it cries in joy- 
ous hope " Even so, come Lord Jesus." m 

Death shall not me from thee divide, 
But draw me closer to thy side. 



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